Sunshine
by AiraTerrindor
Summary: The tale of Olivia Amell, slightly neurotic family-oriented mage, who is definitely not a Dreamer and really just wants to finally have a chance to get a life. Also starring: her many neurotic friends of varying amounts of mental stability.
1. Chapter 1

Very Important Disclaimer: This is a fanfiction. I do not own Dragon Age.

Ch1: In Which Olivia is Double-crossed

If Olivia Amell had one fault, it was that she had a bit too much faith in humanity. It was all fine and good to want to believe the best of people, but sometimes that backfired. Explosively. Well, that only happened twice, really- she was actually a pretty good judge of character- but when it did,well… Just look at exhibit A: the day after she passed her Harrowing and finally became a full mage.

Olivia woke up to a large, blurry shape hovering over her and incoherent sounds. With a surprised shriek, she automatically swung a fist upward and hit something. There was a loud thump, and a small voice muttered "Ow." She sat up, blinking, to realize that she had just punched her best friend on the nose.

"Oops. Sorry, Jowan," she said, embarrassed.

"No problem," he muttered, holding a hand to his face. "I should have remembered you responded that way to being woken up. I was just worried. They carried you in here late last night- all sorts of rumors have been flying around about your Harrowing."

"That's right!" Olivia sprung up, smirking. "I passed my Harrowing! Ha! Now it's technically illegal for the Templars to destroy my brain and the worst they can do is kill me."

"No need to rub it in," said Jowan sulkily.

"Oh cheer up. I'm sure yours will be any day now."

"Yeah, any day now," he said, looking a bit shifty. "Listen, I'm actually here to tell you that the First Enchanter wants to see you as soon as you wake up."

"Which would be now," Olivia finished for him. "All right, I'll go see what Irving wants. Talk to you later, okay?"

"Sure."

As it turned out, Irving wanted to congratulate her on not getting possessed during her Harrowing. Olivia politely avoided voicing any of the half-dozen snarky remarks that popped into her head during the conversation. After the social pleasantries were met, Irving introduced her to the visiting stranger who he had been speaking with when she arrived. He was a Grey Warden. Olivia barely restrained her excitement. It seemed to be successful, because no one appeared to notice her acting any different than usual. The Grey Warden, Duncan, explained that he was looking for mages to go fight darkspawn in the south. Olivia managed to stop herself from gleefully volunteering on the spot, though she did allow herself to briefly fantasize about it.

Irving had her show the Warden to his guest room, and she spent most of the short walk there asking him questions.

As soon as she finished showing the Warden to his room, Olivia ran into Jowan skulking in the hallway, obviously waiting for her.

"Can I talk to you?" he asked in a lowered voice. "It's really important."

"Yesss, what is it?" asked Olivia suspiciously.

"Not here, it isn't safe. Meet me in the Chantry."

"Wait, since when is the Chantry a good place to have surreptitious conversations?" Jowan scuttled off, looking nervous. "Well, that was strange," Olivia remarked to herself. Shrugging, she followed after him.

When they got to the Chantry, Jowan walked over to one of the initiates, a pretty young woman standing in the corner."

"All right," said Olivia. "What's up?"

"Do you remember me telling you that I'd met someone?" Jowan looked ridiculously happy for a moment. "This is Lilley."

That was a surprise. "This is your girlfriend? I'd started to think she was imaginary. You didn't drag me in here just to meet her, did you?"

"No, I need your help."

"With what, setting up dates?"

"No! They're going to make me Tranquil! Lilley saw the paperwork on Irving's desk."

"Oh, come on, what would they do that for?"

"There's a rumor going around that I'm a blood mage. It's not true, but…"

"But the Templars don't take chances." Olivia sighed. "What do you need me to do?"

Lilley spoke up. "If we want to escape, we have to destroy Jowan's phylactery. We need you to get a rod of fire for us so we can break down the door to the room where they're stored."

Olivia blinked. "Or I could just pick the lock," she said dryly.

Jowan looked surprised. "How'd you learn to pick locks?"

"Beat Petra at cards. The women in my dormitory play every Friday night."

"Wait, you mean the female apprentices have gambling nights? Why don't we ever have gambling nights?" Whined Jowan.

"Because you aren't imaginative enough to think of it. And we're getting off topic."

"I can't believe you gamble!"

"Let's just go."

"Good idea," said Lilley, grabbing Jowan's arm and steering him off.

"So," said Olivia when they arrived at the basement door. "I'm assuming that we do have a way to get down to the right floor?"

"Oh, this door just needs a password in conjunction with a spell being cast. No keys needed. Hold on." Lilley dramatically muttered a phrase. "Quick! Cast a spell!"

"Okay." Olivia sent a blast of ice at the door, which sprung open. "Nice," she said appreciatively.

They hurried down the corridor to the door of the phylactery chamber. Lilley started talking about the symbolic meaning of the door's construction. Olivia assumed that commenting on the architecture was her way of dealing with nerves, and ignored the monologue in favor of taking out her hairpins and jimmying open the lock.

"Done," she announced after about thirty seconds. "They really need to put a better lock on this thing. That was ridiculously easy, and I'm not exactly a master at lockpicking."

They walked through the door into a room filled with shelves holding vials of blood.

"Creepy," commented Olivia.

"Quick, we need to find Jowan's phylactery," said Lilley urgently.

"Right. These are in alphabetical order, so…" Olivia hurriedly found the J's. "It's not here! Where? Aha!" She pounced on a table in the corner, where the phylactery was, rather ominously, sitting out. "Here it is! Catch!" She picked up the neatly labeled, disturbingly large vial of blood and tossed it to Jowan, who automatically caught it. He gave a melodramatic and slightly creepy-sounding speech and smashed the phylactery on the ground.

"And I am free," he said, staring oddly at the puddle of blood at his feet.

"Okay, creepy clichéd monologues that sounds like something from a bad pulp novel aside, we should probably leave now."

"You love bad pulp novels," pointed out Jowan.

Olivia turned red. "Shut up."

The three of them hurried back out into the corridor and up the stairs… straight into a large group of Templars led by Irving and Knight-Commander Gregoir. "Well, damn," said Olivia. It seemed the only reasonable response.

There was a lot of yelling, but Olivia barely heard any of it beneath the buzzing panic in her ears. Then Jowan stabbed a knife into his hand and sent out a wave of concussive force that knocked everyone, including Olivia to the ground.

She struggled to her feet, seeing stars and bleeding from a gash on her head but no longer panicking. Calmly, if painfully, she staggered over to Irving and helped him up. Everyone was arguing again, but this time Olivia was focusing on thinking up a way of getting out of this with her mind (and if she was really lucky, life) intact.

"And you!" Gregoir rounded on her in the middle of his tirade. "Because of you we have a blood mage on the loose and no way to track him down! What do you have to say for yourself."

"He said he wasn't a blood mage!"

"And you believed him?"

"Er, yes?" said Olivia quietly. She was beginning to feel pretty angry at Jowan.

"We have no place for gullible mages. You…"

He was cut off by the sudden appearance of Duncan. "The Grey Wardens do, though."

Gregoir looked confused. "What?"

"Er, I mean, I need her as a recruit because she is extremely talented and loyal, and not at all because you would have to be desperate, suicidal, ridiculously naïve, or some combination thereof to agree to join the Grey Wardens in the first place."

"Are you joking? Her?" exclaimed Gregoir.

"No, you," Duncan said sarcastically. "Of course her! She's in a bad enough jam that being a Grey Warden would be preferable… Um I mean, she's powerful, intelligent, skilled, and as evidenced by this incident, loyal." He turned to Olivia. "What do you say?"

She looked between Duncan and the seething Gregoir. "Hell, yes!"

"Good, especially since I would have just conscripted you anyway if for some bizarre reason you hadn't agreed. Let's go, we're leaving."

Olivia gave a small, excited squeak. "Yes! Um, where are we going?"


	2. Chapter 2

Ch. 2: In Which Everyone is Double-crossed

Olivia followed Duncan to the huge military camp in the ruined fortress. "Here we are. We need to…" Duncan was interrupted by the arrival of a group of soldiers led by a tall blond man wearing golden armor. "Your majesty!" Exclaimed Duncan. "I wasn't expecting…"

"To be welcomed personally by the king? I was just beginning to worry you wouldn't get here in time for the fun."

"Er, of course not."

"Then the great and mighty Duncan will fight at my side in battle after all. Glorious!" Duncan looked rather awkward. King Cailan looked at Olivia for the first time. "I heard you found a recruit. I'm assuming that this is her?"

"Yes. Olivia Amell, from the Circle of magi."

Olivia shook off her paralysis at the king's odd attitude. "It's an honor to meet you, your majesty," she said politely, bowing slightly.

"The pleasure is all mine. It must be hard for you to leave your home to become a Grey Warden."

"Not really," said Olivia cheerfully. "The Circle's basically just a big prison where they put people without trial for the dubious crime of existing. I'm having the time of my life. Seriously. We stopped in a bar one time and I got to have actual alcohol! And I got a sunburn! It was awesome!"

Cailan didn't seem to know how to react to that. Luckily, Duncan stepped in. "Your uncle would like me to remind you that he can be here very, very quickly if you'll just wait for him."

Cailan laughed. "Eamon just wants to steal all the glory. I'm not even sure this is a real blight."

Duncan blinked. "Er…"

"I just want something like in the stories, a king riding into battle against the darkspawn beside the Grey Wardens." Olivia surreptitiously tapped her staff with a fist. Duncan stared at her. 'Knock on wood' she mouthed to him. She had the feeling that Cailan had just jinxed himself. The king did not notice this exchange. "Anyway," the King continued obliviously, "I have to go. Loghain is waiting. He wants to bore me to death with his strategies." With that, he turned away and left, followed by his entourage.

"He refers to strategy as boring?" Olivia said to Duncan, stunned. "You really do need all the help you can get, don't you?"

"I'm afraid so. To this end, we need to get your joining ritual over as quickly as possible. Go find Alistair. As the junior Grey Warden, he'll be the one helping you prepare."

"Right. Um, who's Alistair?"

"Just look for the guy who looks exactly like King Cailan except with short hair. He's pretty hard to miss. He'll be somewhere across that bridge," Duncan said, pointing.

"Okay. Wander around until I find the king's doppelganger. Got it."

Olivia ambled off across the bridge. Upon reaching the other side, she heard a miserable whining noise, like an animal in distress. Curious, the followed the sounds to an enclosure full of mabari hounds. One of the mabaris was in a smaller fenced in area off to the side. It was the source of the noises. Olivia stepped up to the fence. "Awww… poor doggie. What's wrong?" She said, feeling sad. The mabari looked at her with an obviously miserable expression and whined unhappily.

A man rushed up. "What are you doing? Get away from there! That dog's got the blight sickness!"

"That's horrible!" exclaimed Olivia. "Isn't there anything you can do?"

"We've got some medicines, but no one can get near enough to administer them." He looked between Olivia and the dog, which was now giving her puppy eyes. "You wouldn't mind muzzling him so we can, would you?"

"Of course not!" He handed Olivia a muzzle and let her into the enclosure. She went over to the dog, making soothing noises, and put the muzzle on, then walked back over to the gate and left. The man looked relieved. "Thank you. Now we can at least try to help him. Listen, you wouldn't happen to be going into the wilds anytime soon?"

"I don't know."

"Well, if you do, there's a flower that might help. It's pretty hard to miss- white with a pure red center. If you happen to run into one…"

"Then I'll bring it to you, I promise."

"Thank you."

"No problem," said Olivia cheerfully as she turned away and began to walk off.

Olivia wandered around a bit more. She found the mages' encampment and spent a little time annoying the Templars before she got bored and left. Eventually, she found a mostly collapsed building with no walls or ceiling where a blond man who looked almost exactly like King Maric was arguing with one of the mages, who abruptly stormed off, pushing past her. "Rude!" she yelled after him.

The blond sighed. "One good thing about the Blight is how it brings people together."

Olivia instantly decided that she liked him. "I know exactly what you mean."

"It's like a big party! We can all stand in a circle and hold hands. It would certainly confuse the darkspawn, at least."

Olivia laughed. "You must be Alistair."

"And you must be the new recruit."

"Yep. Olivia Amell. What was that argument about, anyway?"

"The Grand Cleric asked me to give that man a message. I used to be a Templar, so it was a bit awkward."

"Oh," said Olivia. Her initial good impression went down a bit. "So, er, shall we just move on, then?" she asked uncomfortably.

"Good idea. Go find Duncan next to the bonfire in our camp while I round up the other recruits."

Olivia found Duncan standing dramatically next to the bonfire at about the same time as Alistair showed up with a brawny, nervous-looking fellow and a man whose attitude screamed 'loveable rogue cliché'. Duncan introduced them as, respectively, Ser Jory of Highever and Daveth.

"Now that everyone is here," announced Duncan, "I have two tasks for you in the wilds." Everyone looked at him expectantly. "First, each of you new recruits must procure a vial of darkspawn blood."

That sounded slightly ominous. "Um, why do we need…"

"You just do. As to the second task. There is an old Grey Warden outpost in the wilds. You need to recover a set of important treaties that were left there when it was abandoned."

"What kind of idiot leaves something like that behind?" Duncan looked a bit sheepish. He glared at Olivia. "Right. Shutting up now."

Alistair led Olivia and the other two recruits outside the fortifications. Within a few minutes, they came upon a group of dead soldiers along with one severely wounded survivor crying weakly for help. The group immediately stopped in front of the injured man. "Help!" he gasped. "Scouting group…attacked by darkspawn…need to get back to camp…"

"Hold on a second," said Olivia, pulling some bandages out of her backpack and helping him up after they were securely on his wounds. "The camp's only about twenty feet that way," she said, pointing over her shoulder. "If you can't make it all the way there just yell and someone'll probably hear you."

The injured soldier staggered off. Olivia turned back to her companions to suggest they go. Ser Jory, however, appeared to be having a panic attack. "Why are we out here? We're going to be killed by darkspawn, just like all those men!"

Daveth rolled his eyes. "Don't worry so much. This is probably just a test."

"Besides," added Alistair, soothingly, "Grey Wardens can sense darkspawn nearby. We won't run into any large groups."

"See?" said Daveth cheerfully. "We might be killed by darkspawn, but we'll be warned about it first." It didn't seem to help.

Soon afterward, the group was attacked by a pack of wolves. "What?" shouted Olivia freezing a couple of the wolves in ice and shattering them with a blow of her staff. "Wild animals do not act like this!"

"It's the Blight," Alistair yelled back. "It drives them crazy."

Soon all the wolves were dead, most the victims of Olivia's freeze/burn/bludgeon method of attack. They were ready to move on again when Oliva pounced on a large, miraculously undamaged white flower with a red center, which she carefully placed in a buttoned pocket.

"Okay, why…"

"The man over at the kennels was looking for this kind of flower to help a sick doggie."

"Doggie?" asked Alistair faintly

Olivia glared at him. "Shut up."

"Moving on."

The first encounter with darkspawn began when an arrow smashed into the ground at Ser Jory's feet, making him jump at least a foot in the air, followed by more darkspawn pouring out at them from behind the hill where the archers were stationed. The three men instantly rushed forward to meet the onslaught head-on while Olivia cheerfully hid behind one of the ancient broken pillars they had been walking past and threw fireballs at the archers, freezing or smashing any enemies that came close enough to actually threaten her as she enjoyed the sight of the explosions. Blowing up horrible, twisted monsters was fun.

When the fight was over, the three melee fighters, tired, blood covered and mildly injured, looked at Olivia standing cheerfully in the center of a ring of frozen chunks of darkspawn. "I think I hate you," muttered Daveth.

"S'what you get for not using a bow."

They collected the vials of blood and continued to the abandoned tower, now abandoned structure-with no-ceiling-and-very-few-walls, killing all the darkspawn they came across on the way. The 'tower' contained a smashed-in chest with nothing inside.

"Well, that was productive," remarked Olivia sarcastically. "Now what?"

Everyone jumped as a voice spoke up from atop one of the broken walls. "Well, well, what have we here?" The speaker was a skimpily-dressed black haired woman with creepy yellow eyes. "Are you scavengers perhaps? Or merely intruders come to these darkspawn filled wilds of mine in search of easy prey?" Everyone stared at the newcomer in various degrees of surprise, confusion, and suspicion. "Well?" she said. "What say you? Scavengers or intruders?"

"Neither," Olivia answered, when it became obvious that no one else was going to say anything. "We're Grey Wardens. It's our tower. Well, our organization's tower, technically."

"It is a tower no longer." Well, she'd gotten that one right. "I have watched your party's progress for some time," she continued. "Where do they go, I asked myself. Why are they here?" And now you disturb ashes none have touched for so long. Why is that?"

"Don't answer her," whispered Alistair. "She looks Chasind, and that means there might be others nearby."

"Oooh!" the woman exclaimed. "You fear barbarians will swoop down upon you?"

"Yes… Swooping is bad." Muttered Alistair.

Uncharacteristically, Daveth chimed in nervously. "She's a witch of the wilds, she is. She'll turn us all into toads."

Olivia hit her forehead with her hand. "Daveth, magic doesn't work that way."

"Witch of the wilds?" said the stranger. "Such idle fancies, those legends. Have you no minds of your own?" she gestured to Olivia. "You there. Women are not frightened like little boys. Tell me your name and I shall tell you mine."

"Olivia Amell. It's nice to meet you," said Olivia politely.

"Now that is a proper, civil greeting, even here in these wilds. You may call me Morrigan. Shall I guess your purpose? You sought something in that chest, something that is here no longer?"

"Here no longer? You stole it, didn't you?" accused Alistair. "You're some sort of sneaky witch-thief."

"How very eloquent." Olivia agreed with that sentiment completely. "How does one steal from dead men?"

"Quite easily, it seems," snarked Alistair. "Those documents are Grey Warden property and I suggest you return them."

"I cannot. I didn't take them," Morrigan sniffed.

"Who did take them, then?" asked Olivia.

"My mother."

"Can you take us to see her?"

"Now that is a sensible request. I like you."

"I'd be careful," said Alistair. "First it's 'I like you' then 'zap', you're a frog."

Olivia sighed. "You'd think an ex-Templar would know that magic doesn't work that way."

"Duncan rescued me before I could finish my training."

"She'll put us all in the pot, she will, just you watch," said Daveth.

At this point, Ser Jory made his first useful contribution to any of their conversations with a comment of "If the pot's warmer than this forest, it'd be a nice change."

"Follow me, then," said Morrigan, beginning to walk away, giving them no choice but to follow her or be left behind.

Morrigan led them in a twisting, convoluted path through the forest to a tiny hut outside which an elderly woman stood. "Greetings, mother," said Morrigan. "I bring you four Grey Wardens, who…"

"I noticed, girl, I'm not blind." interrupted the elderly woman. "Much as I expected."

Alistair scoffed. "Are we supposed to believe you were expecting us?"

"You are required to do nothing, least of all believe. Shut one's eyes tight or open one's arms wide, either way, one's a fool." That… made no sense at all.

"We shouldn't be talking to her," said Daveth in an undertone. "She's a witch."

"Be quiet. Do you actually want to make someone who might be a witch mad?" asked Ser Jory sensibly.

"There is a smart lad," said the old woman. "Sadly irrelevant in the larger scheme of things, but it is not I who decides. Believe what you will."

Olivia shivered, causing Alistair to look at her inquisitively. "My foreshadowing senses are tingling."

That seemed to have gotten the old woman's attention. "And what of you? What do you believe?"

"I…honestly don't know," admitted Olivia.

"And you show more wisdom in that than is at first obvious. So much about you is uncertain…and yet I believe. Do I? Why, it seems I do."

"So this is the witch of the wilds everyone is so scared of," said Alistair in an amused voice.

"Witch of the wilds? Morrigan must have told you that. She secretly thinks those tales are amusing." The old woman laughed.

"They're not here for your stories, mother," cut in Morrigan irritably and a bit embarrassed.

"No, they came for their treaties." The old woman fetched a stack of papers from the hut's steps. "And before you start to complain, the seal on the chest broke long ago. I have protected these."

"You…"Alistair automatically began indignantly. "Oh. You protected them. Thank you."

"And why not?" She handed him the documents. "Take them to your Grey Wardens and tell them this Blight's threat is greater than they realize."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Olivia.

"Either the threat is more or they realize less. Or perhaps the threat is nothing or perhaps they realize nothing." She laughed. The cryptic statement inexplicably made Olivia more nervous than it probably should have, but she had no chance to ask more questions, for the old woman then had Morrigan escort them back to the camp.

Once they arrived at the camp, it was time for the mysterious ceremony, though Olivia did make a quick detour to give the flower she had picked up to the man at the kennels, Alistair, Jory, and Daveth waiting exasperatedly behind her. While they were waiting around for Duncan to show up, Ser Jory began having another panic attack. "I didn't sign up for this sort of thing! I came to fight darkspawn, not participate in mysterious, creepy rituals! I left my pregnant wife behind in Highever at our new house to come here." Olivia discretely sidled away from him. Yep. Definitely a goner.

"I'd sacrifice a lot more than that if I knew it would stop the Blight!" shot back Daveth.

"It just doesn't seem fair," Ser Jory whined.

"Since when is anything in life fair?" snapped Olivia.

At that point, Duncan arrived, carrying a large, ornate goblet. "And now the time has come for the Joining," he said solemnly. "You must drink darkspawn blood and master the taint."

"Ew," said Olivia.

"We're going to drink those…things'…blood?" asked Ser Jory, sounding horrified.

"Just like all the Grey Wardens before you. It is the source of our power."

"Doesn't make it any less icky, though," said Olivia.

Duncan rolled his eyes.

"You'll be immune to the Taint afterward. And able to use it to sense when darkspawn are nearby and slay the archdemon," said Alistair. "If you survive."

"Not helping much," grumbled Olivia. "Fine, fine, on with the deadly, icky cultish ritual, then."

"We speak only a few words prior to the Joining, but these words have been said since the first," said Duncan. "Alistair?"

Alistair bowed his head slightly and began to speak. "Join us, brothers and sisters. Join us as we carry the duty that cannot be forsworn. And should you perish, know that your sacrifice will not be forgotten and that one day we shall join you." All three recruits, including Olivia, began to become rather nervous. Ser Jory was becoming positively antsy, shooting apprehensive glances at the goblet of blood.

Duncan picked up the goblet in both hands and moved toward Daveth. "Daveth, step foreward," he said. Daveth took the cup and took a sip. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, Daveth grasped his head, screaming, and collapsed on the ground, desperately trying to breathe. "Maker's breath!" swore Ser Jory, stepping backward with a horrified expression as Daveth expired on the ground.

"Step forward, Jory," said Duncan.

"No way! I've got a wife and child! If I'd known about this…"

"There is no turning back."

Ser Jory backed against the wall and drew his sword. "No! This isn't glorious at all!"

Duncan put down the goblet and drew his dagger, stabbing Jory in the chest. "I am sorry," he said, letting the lifeless body fall to the ground. "But the Joining is not yet complete" He turned to Olivia, who was staring in shocked horror. "You are called to submit yourselves to the Taint for the greater good," he said, handing her the goblet. Olivia closed her eyes, desperately trying to pretend that she was not about to drink poisonous blood, and took a sip from the goblet, forcing herself to swallow. She handed the goblet back to Duncan and collapsed into agonized darkness, filled with visions of a vast dragon beneath a greenish sky.

Olivia awoke to a pounding head and the sight of Alistair and Duncan's faces looking down at her. "It is finished," said Duncan. "Welcome."

"Two more deaths," said Alistair sadly. "Only one person died at my Joining, but it was still awful. I'm glad one of you made it."

"Yeah?" said Olivia. "The one who died at your Joining, was it from the poison blood or was he stabbed, too?"

Alistair and Duncan both looked a bit awkward. "So...how do you feel," asked Duncan.

"Well, my head hurts, I was just in horrible pain, two people I know are dead, and I just had a really creepy dream about a giant dragon."

"The dream part is normal," said Alistair helpfully. "The other Grey Wardens will explain it later. Oh, yeah, here." He handed her a small glass pendant filled with a viscous dark red liquid. "We take some of the blood from our Joining and put it in a pendant to remind us of the people who died."

"Oh, joy," said Olivia dryly. "Did you make this while I was unconscious? How long was I out for, exactly?"

"Only a few minutes. We pre-make them and if you die in the Joining we bury you with it."

"Lovely." Olivia stuck the pendant in her pocket.

"Okay," said Duncan. "You have five minutes to rest, then we need to go to a strategy meeting with the king. For some reason he insisted on having you there. It's at that table just down the stairs to the west."

"I'll just buy a headache potion and meet you there, then," said Olivia with a weak smile.

True to her word, she went and got a headache potion the wandered over to the meeting. As she approached, Cailan was arguing with a large, grumpy-looking man with black hair. "For the last time, Loghain, I'm fighting with the Grey Wardens!"

The man, who was apparently Loghain, scowled. "It's too dangerous for the king to fight a darkspawn horde on the front lines."

"Maybe we should wait for the Orlesians to get here, then."

"No Orlesians!"

"Oh get over it."

"It's a good thing your father isn't here to see this."

"Whatever," said Cailan. "Duncan, are your people ready for the battle?"

"Yes, your majesty," said Duncan politely.

Cailan looked at Olivia. "And this is the recruit I met on the road? Congratulations."

"Um, thank you, your majesty," said Olivia. She wondered what Duncan would have told him if she had died in the Joining.

"We need every Grey Warden we can get right now. You should be honored to join them."

Loghain glared at him. "Your fascination with glory and legends is going to get you killed one of these days. We need to focus on the real world."

"Fine, let's talk plans, then. So, the Grey Wardens and I will draw the darkspawn into charging at us and then…"

"You light the beacon to signal my men to charge from where they're hidden."

"To flank the darkspawn, I remember, yeesh. Who's going to be lighting the beacon? It's in the Tower of Ishal, right?"

"I've got some men there," said Loghain. "It's not very dangerous but it is important."

"Then we should send the best people we can. Send Alistair and the new Grey Warden to make sure it gets done."

"I have a name," muttered Olivia. "I will do it if you want me to, though."

"You are putting way too much faith in these Grey Wardens," complained Loghain.

"Enough of your conspiracy theories," said Cailan. "Grey Wardens battle darkspawn no matter where they come from." Olivia kind of wanted to hear the conspiracy theories. They sounded interesting.

"You should consider the possibility of the archdemon showing up," interrupted Duncan.

"No one's seen any giant dragons nearby," pointed out Loghain.

"Isn't keeping a lookout for the archdemon your job?" asked Cailan.

Duncan looked embarrassed. "Yes your majesty."

An older man in mage robes that Olivia vaguely recognized from the Circle Tower butted in. "Your majesty, we don't need the tower and the beacon. The circle of magi…"

He was interrupted by an elderly cleric who for some reason was part of the war council. "We will not trust our lives to your spells, mage!" she snapped. "Save it for the darkspawn!"

"I have a name," snapped the mage at the same time as Olivia commented with "Wow, you really are prejudiced."

"Enough!" snarled an exasperated Loghain. "Let's just stick with the plan we have. The Grey Wardens can light the beacon."

"Thank you, Loghain," said Cailan. "I cannot wait for that glorious moment! The Grey Wardens battle beside the king to stem the tide of evil."

"Yes, Cailan, a glorious moment for us all." Olivia couldn't see Loghain's face, but just from his voice that sounded distinctly ominous.

"And suddenly I'm really glad I won't be fighting in the battle," she announced to Duncan.

He looked confused. "Back to the bonfire, let's go."

Back at the bonfire, they met up with Alistair. "Okay, you heard the plan," said Duncan. "You and Alistair will go to the Tower of Ishal and make sure the beacon gets lit."

"What?" exclaimed Alistair. "I'm not going to fight in the battle?"

"The king specifically requested that you and Olivia do this. Besides, if the beacon isn't lit, Teryn Loghain and his men won't know when to charge. It's important."

"So he needs two Grey Wardens up there just in case?"

"Yeah, well, he's the king. You're stuck with beacon-lighting duty," said Duncan. "Even if it is boring."

"Fine," said Alistair grumpily. "But if the king ever asks me to put on a dress and dance the remgold, I'm not doing it."

Olivia rolled her eyes. "Way to take a stand there, Alistair."

"I've still got dignity. Well, a little bit of it."

Duncan sighed. "The tower is across the gorge from the king's camp, back the way we came when we arrived. You need to get to the top of the tower, where you'll be able to see the entire valley. We'll signal you when it's time to light the beacon."

"What's the…"

"Alistair knows what the signal is."

"Okay."

"I need to join the others. The two of you are on your own from here. Remember, you're Grey Wardens, act like it. Oh, yeah," he pulled a stack of paper out of his sash that Olivia recognized as the documents they had retrieved earlier that day. "Take these with you. I don't want them getting lost or damaged during the battle." He handed the papers to Olivia, who carefully stuck them in her backpack. "Keep those with you." Duncan turned to leave.

"Duncan," called Alistair hesitantly. "Good luck. May the Maker watch over you."

Duncan sighed. "May the Maker watch over us all."

A couple hours later, Olivia and Alistair began heading toward the Tower of Ishal. In the distance, Olivia could hear a clamor of noise from the battlefield. As they crossed the gorge, huge flaming boulders smashed into the bridge they were on, making the entire structure shudder and sending shrapnel flying everywhere. It was raining, and the stones were slippery, which, along with the boulders, made it very difficult to walk.

It was once they reached the other side of the gorge, however, that things started to get difficult. A rather generic-looking soldier ran up in a panic and started gesturing wildly to a second soldier.

"What's going on?" asked Alistair.

"The Tower!" wailed the first soldier. "It's fallen!"

"What? What do you mean? Fallen how? More information please!"

"The darkspawn came up from the basement! All our people are dead!"

"We've got to get to the beacon ourselves, then," decided Alistair.

The second soldier was staring at Olivia oddly. "Do I know you? You look eerily familiar."

"Probably not; I spent the past ten years locked up by an insane theocracy."

"Olivia?"

"Okay, how did you know that?"

He took off his helmet, revealing a young man with short black hair and bright blue eyes almost exactly like hers. "It's me, Carver."

Olivia stared. "Woah. I haven't seen you since you were seven. You got taller than me. No fair. What have you been up to, anyway?"

"We went back to moving around all the time. You?"

"Spent ten years jailed for the crime of…well, existing…before going and joining the Grey Wardens." She cackled. "They'll never be able to take me back to the Circle now."

Alistair was getting impatient. "Tower. Darkspawn. Remember?"

"Oh, sorry," said Olivia. "Meet me after the battle?" she asked Carver.

"Sure. You'll be in the Grey Wardens' camp?"

"Yep."

"Great. I'll be there. You should visit Mother, too. We're living in Lothering."

"I will," said Olivia. Alistair coughed. "Right. Tower."

"I should go find Hawke. She'll get in trouble trying to rescue someone without me. She's developed a bit of a hero complex. Why Mother let her con her way into the army…" Carver ran off, and Olivia and Alistair commenced hurrying to the Tower of Ishal.

"Who was that, anyway?"

"My long lost cousin who I haven't seen or heard from in years because the Templars don't let mages have any contact with their family or friends."

"…So, who's Hawke."

"His sister, Pandora. Never use her actual first name. She hates it and is really scary with a sword." Also her magic, but Olivia wasn't mentioning that in front of an audience.

"So…"

"Look out!" Olivia pulled Alistair out of the way of a darkspawn arrow and reached for her staff. "Looks like we'll have to fight our way to the tower," she said, blasting a hole in the offending darkspawn's head.

"Guess so," said Alistair, drawing his sword.

The next ten minutes or so were a blur of rain, dismemberment, and explosions courtesy of Olivia as the two of them battled their way through about a dozen darkspawn with the help of a few surviving soldiers to get to the doors of the tower.

"Right, who's coming with us?" asked Olivia.

The handful of soldiers looked at one another nervously. Eventually, two of them stepped forward. "Bob and I will, ma'am."

"Great. Let's go. Come on, Bob and…"

"Cliff, ma'am."

"Bob and Cliff. Brilliant. May I just say that you two are the bravest men here?"

Bob and Cliff looked father proud, while their comrades shifted guiltily.

The group of four walked into the tower of Ishal and almost immediately encountered a barricade with only one opening. Shrugging, Olivia walked over to the barricade and immediately slipped on the floor, which had been covered in grease, sliding straight into a tripwire that caused a nearby barrel to explode. Well this was off to an auspicious start.

Several floors of bloodshed later, Olivia was getting severely annoyed. She didn't seem to be the only one, either. "What are these darkspawn doing here?" wondered Alistair, sounding equal parts annoyed and befuddled.

"You could try telling them that they're in the wrong place," Olivia suggested a bit bitterly.

He laughed. "Pardon me, mister darkspawn, you appear to have gotten a bit turned around. Allow me to direct you to the battle." Olivia snickered.

They eventually reached the top of the tower. "Finally!" exclaimed Alistair. "There's the beac…on," he trailed off, staring at the corner of the room, where a gigantic ogre was happily dismembering corpses.

"How did that thing even get up here?" wondered Olivia. "It looks too big to fit on the staircases, let alone through the door."

The ogre roared and charged the four unlucky humans, who immediately scattered in different directions. Olivia flung a spell at the ogre, somehow managing to hit it and encase the huge monster in ice that immediately began to crack. "Do something!" she shouted, sending a blast from her staff at it. "That won't hold it for long!"

"Right!" said Alistair. He and Cliff fan around behind the ogre and began hewing at the back of its heels, presumably going for its tendons, while Olivia and Bob sniped at it from as far away as possible using the staff and a bow respectively.

The ogre got free of the ice at the same time as Alistair managed to cut through its thick skin to cripple it. It fell to one knee with a roar, sweeping its arms around and knocking Alistair and Cliff off their feet, sending them crashing into the wall. Luckily for all of them, that gave Bob a clear shot at the ogre's face and he sent an arrow through its eye, killing it.

"Hurry up and light the beacon," called out Alistair while struggling to stand back up. "We must have missed the signal by now!"

"Right," confirmed Olivia. She ran over to the beacon and flung a quick fire spell at it, sending up a gigantic blaze. "There. That should be…" She was interrupted by the door being smashed inward, darkspawn flooding into the room. Before she even had time to reach for her staff, three arrows simultaneously slammed into her and she collapsed, her vision going blurry. Her last, slightly incoherent, thought before passing out was vaguely delirious annoyance that after everything that had happened, she was still going to die in a tower.


	3. Chapter 3

Ch 3: In Which there are Witches

Olivia groggily opened her eyes and sat up… in bed. Which was confusing because the last thing she remembered was being under attack by darkspawn and passing out with three arrows in her. "Ugh," she mumbled. "Note to self- ditch the slave robes and get some armor."

"Ah, you're awake." A vaguely familiar voice sounded from the corner of the tiny hut where she seemed to be located.

"Morrigan?" said Olivia, squinting at the other woman.

"You remember."

"What happened."

"The man who was supposed to respond to your signal quit the field," said Morrigan with obvious disdain. "Your friend… he is not taking it well. As in really badly. I think he might have a mental breakdown."

"My friend? Alistair?" Olivia frowned. "What happened to the other Grey Wardens? And the king, for that matter," she added.

"They're all dead. Your friend has been going back and forth between denial and grief ever since Mother told him what happened. He's currently outside feeling sorry for himself. Mother is out there too; she wanted to talk to you when you woke up."

"I'd better go, then," said Olivia, climbing weakly out of bed and pulling on her ripped and slightly bloodstained robes with distaste that was only partially due to their condition, grabbing her backpack from where it was sitting beside the bed. "Thank you for helping me, Morrigan."

Morrigan didn't seem to know quite how to respond to that. "I… you're welcome. It was no trouble, really." Olivia got the feeling that people didn't thank Morrigan for things too often.

Olivia limped outside, where Alistair was staring moodily out over the pond, watched by Morrigan's mother. Possibly to prevent him from jumping in. "There, see," the old woman said to him. "There's your friend. You worry too much."

"You…you're alive," he said quietly, voice breaking on the words. "I thought you were dead for sure."

Olivia smiled a bit sadly. "Can't get rid of me that easily. I'm fine, thanks to Morrigan's mother."

"This is all so… surreal," said Alistair quietly. "If it weren't for Morrigan's mother we would be dead up on that tower."

"Yeah… and dying in a tower is what I joined the Wardens to avoid," joked Olivia weakly.

"Don't talk about me like I'm not here," added the old woman. "It's rude. I have a name, you know."

"Sorry," said Alistair awkwardly. "But, er, we don't actually know your name…"

"Names are overrated. The Chasind call me Flemeth. I suppose you can, too."

"Wait…" said Alistair. "Flemeth? That Flemeth? You really are the Witch of the Wilds. Daveth was actually right." He seemed surprised, though Olivia wasn't quite sure to which part.

"I do know a bit of magic. It comes in handy. Rather useful for saving you lives, in fact."

Alistair had the decency to look embarrassed. "Thank you for that." His expression fell. "So. What now?"

"Well, seeing as you're Grey Wardens, it seems to me that you should be figuring out how to stop the darkspawn."

This seemed to upset Alistair. "We were! The king almost had them beaten! Why would Loghain go this?" he sounded miserable.

"Now that is a good question," said Flemeth. "Men's hearts hold shadows darker than any tainted creature. Perhaps he sees the Blight as just another army to be fought and ignores the threat leading it."

"The archdemon," said Alistair darkly.

"Well," said Olivia with false cheer. "It looks like we've got our work cut out for us, then."

"Alone? No Grey Warden has ever defeated a Blight without a gigantic army backing them up."

Olivia silently held up her backpack, still containing the treaties that Duncan had given to her for safekeeping ages ago. "In that case, I suppose it looks like we'll have to get one."

"The treaties!" exclaimed Alistair, realizing what she was suggesting. "That's right! The Grey Wardens can call on elves, dwarves, and mages for help. Not to mention Arl Eamon would never stand for this," he added.

Olivia blinked. "The Arl of Redcliffe?" she asked, confused.

"He wasn't at Ostegar, so he still has all his men. And he was Cailan's uncle. I know him. He's a good person and everyone in the landsmeet respects him. We could get help from him, too."

"Now you're thinking," said Olivia, unable to stop herself from being cheered by Alistair's enthusiasm. It was much better than the gloom of earlier.

Flemeth smirked. "Call me old, but this is beginning to sound like an army."

"Can we really do this? Just go out and build an army?" asked Alistair, sounding almost disbelieving at the idea of a solution.

"Why not?" said Olivia. She smiled. "It's not like we have anything better to do."

"So you're set, then?" asked Flemeth.

"Looks like it."

"Then before you go, I have one more thing to offer you."

At that moment, Morrigan appeared. "Dinner is ready, Mother. Are these two staying?"

"No. And neither are you. You're going with them."

"Oh, what a… wait, what?"

"You heard me."

"Thank you for offering," said Olivia, feeling awkward, "but if Morrigan doesn't want to come…"

"Don't I have a choice here?" Morrigan asked indignantly at the same time.

"No," said Flemeth bluntly. "You've wanted to leave the Wilds for years anyway."

"Do we have to take her?" complained Alistair. "I mean, outside the Wilds she's an apostate. Don't we have enough problems?"

"Maybe I should have left you on that tower if you didn't want any help from illegal mages," said Flemeth.

"Point taken."

"Mother, I'm not ready for this," wailed Morrigan.

"You must go, Morrigan," said Flemeth seriously. "Without you, they stand no chance and the Blight will destroy everything. Even me."

"I… understand."

"And you Wardens? Do you understand? I give you that which I value above all in the world. I do this because you must succeed."

Olivia nodded, a bit nervous at the seriousness. "I understand."

"I'll go pack," said Morrigan grumpily.

A few minutes later, she returned, carrying a backpack. "I'm ready. I suggest we stop at a village just north of the Wilds called Lothering, first, for supplies."

Olivia frowned. That reminded her. Nervously, she turned to Flemeth. "I know it's a long shot, but my cousins, Pandora and Carver Hawke… You wouldn't happen to know if they got out of Ostegar safely?"

Flemeth smiled mysteriously. "Oh, they did. They'll make it home just fine. Yes they will. Muahahahaha."

Olivia decided that she really didn't want to know what that was about. "Okay… I'm just going to ignore that ominous laugh for now and be grateful that my family is safe. While leaving. As quickly as possible."

She grabbed Alistair and Morrigan and practically fled into the Wilds, the sound of Flemeth's laughter following them.


	4. Chapter 4

Ch. 4: In Which Olivia Gains Companions

A couple days later, the three of them were walking down the road when a large brown mabari burst out of the bushes and planted itself in front of the group, growling at the road ahead of them. Almost immediately, a group of darkspawn appeared around the bend and the dog launched itself at them, snarling. Alistair drew his sword and shield and did the same, snarling included, while Olivia and Morrigan began casting spells at them from a distance. The group made short work of the very small band of darkspawn, mainly because of the dog running around and chomping on the creatures' legs.

After the fight, the dog went up to Olivia and looked at her happily, wagging its short tail. It looked familiar. "Are you the dog from Ostegar?" The dog's tail wagged more frantically.

"I think he's chosen you," said Alistair. "They call it imprinting."

Olivia rolled her eyes. I know what imprinting is, Alistair. I had a mabari before when I was a kid. Templars killed him." The dog whined and nosed her hand. "Aww, it's okay, boy. That's not happening again. C'mon," she rubbed the dog's head. "I'll call you Dusty, How about that?" the dog wagged its tail.

"Do we have to take this mangy beast with us?" complained Morrigan. Olivia got the feeling that she wasn't a dog person.

"Aww, he's not mangy," said Alistair.

"And even if he was, I'd know how to treat it," added Olivia. "My mother made sure I knew when I got my first dog, Rusty. C'mon boy."

Much to Morrigan's obvious dismay, the dog followed them down the road.

They eventually reached the town of Lothering. While walking down the road into town, they were met with a suspicious-looking barrier of overturned wagons. A shifty, dark-haired man in cheap armor walked over to hem with a sleazy smile.

"Well, look here. More travelers. Led by a woman, of all things."

Wait. Did he seriously say that? He did. Olivia gave him her nastiest glare, the one promising a fireball to the face. "'Of all things'? What, exactly, did you mean by that?" she asked tightly. "Are you being sexist?" Olivia's hand twitched toward the knife in her belt.

"No!" said the man defensively.

"Maybe we should let them pass," said the large man standing behind them, looking with apprehension at the expression on Olivia's face. "These don't look like them others."

"You got that right," said Olivia viciously. "I'm from F.M.A.S, Female Mages Against Sexism, and if you puny highwaymen think you can get away with getting money out of my party after that comment…." Olivia trailed off, still glaring.

The bandit leader turned pale. "Sorry! We're just trying to make a living! Please don't turn us into toads!"

"Scram, then. And I don't want to see you around here again, or else… And magic doesn't work that way!" she added as an afterthought.

The terrified robbers fled as quickly as they could. "F.M.A.S?" asked Alistair bemusedly.

"I made it up just now. It's not real," said Olivia.

Olivia ducked behind their wagon barricade to rummage through the highwaymen's spoils. "Money, weapons, wanted poster for 'those traitor Grey Wardens'- lovely, now we're officially on the lam. How did they even know we survived, anyway? To town, then?"

"Before we go, I think we should decide what we're going to do," said Alistair. "Personally, I think our first stop should be Redcliffe."

"We should go after Loghain immediately before he has a chance to cause more trouble," said Morrigan. "Ignore Alistair."

Olivia looked flatly at the two, who had spent the past week bickering. "How about we compromise? Let's go to the Circle Tower first."

"How is that a compromise?" asked Alistair. "That way neither of us is happy!"

"Yes, but I'll get a chance to gloat about my freedom to the Templars. So I'll be happy."

"Now that sentiment I can understand," said Morrigan.

"At least someone does. Let's go. I'm impatient to see if this town has any decent armor or at least non-arrow-hole-filled clothing I can acquire."

Olivia led her slightly-less-than-enthusiastic companions down the only real street in town, stopping in front of a building with a sign picturing a full flagon out front. "I suspect that this is the bar. Shall we?" She swung the door open, feeling inordinately pleased.

As they entered the bar, a redheaded woman in Chantry robes looked up from the corner and a half-dozen armed men in the center of the room stood up and walked toward Olivia's group. "Well, well, well," said the apparent leader. "Haven't we spent all day asking about a woman by this very description?"

"In a bar?" asked Olivia skeptically. "Seems like you've really been exerting yourselves. And are you looking for me or just someone who looks like me? Though either way that's kind of creepy."

The man looked angry. "You know what this is about! We work for Teryn Loghain. You are Grey Wardens and therefore traitors who must die!"

At this point, the woman in the Chantry robes stepped in between the two groups. "Now gentlemen, I'm sure we can resolve this peacefully…" With a snarl, the man drew his sword and Olivia jerked the redhead out of the way just as the blade slashed down through the air where the woman had been standing moments before. Looking annoyed, the sister kicked the attacking thug in the groin, sending him collapsing to the ground, howling in pain, then grabbed a knife off a nearby table and stabbed another of the thugs in the gut. Both Olivia and Alistair stared at her in shock for a few moments before Morrigan's zapping a third thug with lightning reminded them that they were under attack and they helped finish off the remaining enemies.

After the fight was over, Olivia stepped up to the thug leader, now the only surviving enemy. "I could kill you, but you're kind of pathetic, so I'm not going to. Oh, and remember to pay this place's owner compensation for the mess." The thug nodded mutely and headed over to the bar, where he handed his entire purse over to the man behind it, shooting Olivia nervous glances the entire time, then ran out the door, slamming it behind him. The barkeeper motioned, and several burly men game and began cleaning up the dead bodies while the rest of the clientele, apparently realizing that the excitement was over, went back to what they had been doing.

Olivia smiled at the redhead. "Thanks for the help. Where'd you learn to do that, anyway?"

"Places," said the sister evasively. "So are you really Grey Wardens?"

"Yesss…" said Olivia slowly. "Do you have a problem with that?"

"Oh, no, not at all. The Maker told me to help you. He sent me a vision. I'm Lelaiana, by the way."

"Right…Well, if the Maker's on my side, welcome aboard," said Olivia sarcastically.

Apparently unable to recognize Olivia's tone, Leliana grinned. "Great! We're going to have an amazing time traveling together!" she said obliviously.

Olivia smacked her own forehead. "Okay…I'm just going to go… talk to this fellow." She hurried over to the bar. "Sorry about the…" she gestured vaguely to the bloodstains on the floor.

"No problem at all," said the bartender, looking gleefully at the thug leader's purse. "What can I do for you?"

"Got any rooms?"

"I'm afraid not. I could…"

"Never mind. You wouldn't happen to know where the Hawkes live, would you?"

The bartender looked a bit confused. "Yeah. They've got a place just west of town. You can't miss it."

"Thanks. I… just thanks." Olivia hurried back over to where Alistair and Morrigan were standing awkwardly with Leliana. "Hey, listen. Would you three mind staying here and doing… whatever you feel like… for a while? Actually, you don't even need to stay- just meet me back here in a couple hours. I've got some personal stuff to do."

"You seem nervous," commented Alistair. "Is this about your aunt again?"

"Maybe," Olivia answered defensively.

"Are you going to be all right? Do you want me to come with you for, you know, moral support?"

Olivia smiled. "You are far too nice. I'll be fine. Thank you for offering, though." She ducked outside and began wandering over to the west side of town. The only residential building was a small, neat house on the other side of a small hill from the town, surrounded by a fence. Olivia unlatched the gate and walked nervously up to the front door. Would they really want to see her? Was this even the right house? Maybe she should just…Olivia shook her head firmly and knocked on the door.

Nothing happened and Olivia was just about to lose her nerve and run away when the door was opened by a distinguished-looking older woman. "Maker's breath! Olivia?" Olivia broke down crying.

Three hours, several cups of tea, a bath, and a change of clothes later, Olivia had finally calmed down all the way and spilled her entire story to her aunt Leandra and cousin Bethany, who Olivia was slightly shocked to see as an adult rather than the adorable little kid that used to follow her and Pandora around. "I'm really, really sorry about falling apart like that," she said. "I don't normally cry, ever. And I'm sorry for bothering you like this. I can leave if you don't want me around."

"Why wouldn't we?" exclaimed Bethany. "You're family!"

"Well, I just…" Olivia groped around for words to describe the nebulous feeling.

Leandra looked at her shrewdly. "Living in the Circle has given you self-esteem issues. As for the breakdown…Olivia, when was the last time you really cried properly?"

"Um…" Olivia had to really think about that. "Nine years? The Circle doesn't really appreciate whiny apprentices."

"Oh, honey," said Leandra sadly. "Occasionally crying about something that really upsets you doesn't make you whiny."

"I meant that letting people know that something upsets you is a bad idea," muttered Olivia. "The Templars take it as a sign of weakness and weak mages get made Tranquil. I don't wanna be made Tranquil. That's why I'm a Grey Warden now. Grey Wardens don't do that stuff to people."

Leandra and Bethany both looked mildly horrified. After a few rather awkward moments, Leandra spoke again. "While you're here, I have a favor to ask you."

"You do?" asked Olivia, surprised.

"When you leave, take Bethany with you."

"Wait, what?" exclaimed Bethany and Olivia simultaneously.

"I need to wait for Carver and Pandora to get back before I leave but, knowing them, they won't until the last minute and, while I would really prefer Bethany leave while it's still safe, I don't want her to go alone or with strangers, because of the mage issue," explained Leandra.

"So you want to send her off with someone you haven't seen in ten years?" asked Olivia incredulously. "What if I'd become a mindless Chantry drone or something?"

"If you were I wouldn't have asked you, but it's pretty clear you aren't. There are dozens of Templars you could have set on us if you were, you just told us half an hour ago that you're traveling with an apostate, and even if you were so brainwashed that you'd betray your own family, Pandora would get you, Grey Warden or not."

Olivia shuddered. "She's only become tougher and more protective, hasn't she?"

"And developed a hero complex, if you listen to Carver."

"I'm still a Grey Warden, though," pointed out Olivia. "You don't think that traveling with me might be kind of dangerous?"

"Being a Grey Warden just means you'll be able to protect her. If anyone finds out she's a mage and makes trouble over it, claim she's another Warden."

"I can't believe nobody is asking my opinion about this," grumbled Bethany.

"What is your opinion, then?" asked Olivia.

"Oh, I want to go with you. I just felt left out of the conversation."

"Then it's decided," said Leandra triumphantly. "Bethany, go fetch your quick-getaway bag."

"Okay," said Bethany cheerily.

"I still think this is an incredibly rash decision," commented Olivia.

Leandra rolled her eyes. "If I wasn't the type of person who made rash decisions, I wouldn't have eloped to Ferelden with an apostate."

Bethany returned, carrying a tough leather backpack slung over one shoulder. "I'm ready!"

"Don't forget the rest of the pastries from tea!" Leandra handed Olivia a cloth bundle and began herding the two young women outside.

"Okay, what just happened?" asked Olivia once the door had slammed shut behind them.

Bethany shrugged. "Who knows, really. It's my mother. Maybe she thinks I need to deprogram you or something."

"Always a possibility. I guess we're going?"

"Yeah. We should probably go find out if your companions have killed one another yet. It sounded like a real possibility. Besides, Mother won't let us back in the house now."

As it turned out, Morrigan and Alistair had not killed each other. They were sitting in the tavern with Leliana, each trying to ignore the other.

"Where have you been?" complained Morrigan. "These two dragged me into all sorts of nonsense while you were gone."

"What happened?" asked Olivia suspiciously.

"Well…" said Alistair. He began a long description of various escapades in one long run-on sentence that Olivia tuned out halfway through.

"You forgot about the dwarves," added Leliana, when Alistair was finished talking.

"Oh yeah, we rescued a pair of dwarves from some darkspawn outside of town. A merchant and his son. Also did you know that there's a Qunari locked up in a cage on the edge of town?"

Olivia didn't. "Yes," answered Bethany instead. "He killed my best friend and her family."

Alistair looked horrified. "So…" he said awkwardly after a few moments. "What were you doing?"

"Well, I had tea with my aunt."

"That was anticlimactic."


	5. Chapter 5

Ch. 5 In Which Olivia Returns to the Circle Tower

The group, now composed of five humans and a dog, traveled as far as they could before sunset, everyone agreeing, for once, that there was simply no point staying in a town filled with refugees and that, besides, they really needed to get moving anyway. Once it began to get dark out, they set up camp in a clearing a little ways off the road.

Olivia started a campfire by piling a bunch of sticks together in a clear patch of dirt and shooting a flame spell at them. She looked pensively at her cheerfully burning handiwork. "I think it needs something else," she said, going over to her backpack and pulling out the ripped Circle robes that she never intended to wear again, especially now that she had some of Pandora's old hunting leathers to wear instead. Olivia rummaged through the pockets for anything she would want to keep, coming up with a set of lockpicks, some pretty rocks, and an amulet, all of which she transferred to the belt pouch of her current outfit. "Ha!" she announced loudly, giving the robes a final shake and throwing them triumphantly onto the fire. Everyone looked at her oddly. Alistair, Morrigan, Bethany, Leliana, and… two dwarves? "Enchantment!" shouted the younger one excitedly.

"Where did they come from?" asked Olivia, confused.

"They're the merchants we saved earlier," explained Alistair. "Apparently they want to travel with us for protection."

"Er, enchantment?"

Alistair shrugged. "Oh, that's Sandal. 'Enchantment' seems to be the only thing he says."

"Huh." Olivia shrugged and went back to watching the Circle robes burning on the fire. It was very satisfying.

That night, Olivia had strange dreams about a dragon and a host of darkspawn beneath a green sky. She woke up feeling both alarmed and slightly irritated at not getting to fight anything, her fists clenched. "Bad dreams?" Alistair asked.

"Depends on your definition of bad," muttered Olivia. "It was a lot more of a nebulous, impersonal sort of bad than my dreams usually are. So, the big dragon. Was that the archdemon?"

"Yeah. It's part of sensing the darkspawn."

"Great," muttered Olivia. "Any more surprises?"

"Besides the fact that we're also slowly dying from the Taint and it's probably impossible for us to ever have children?"

"Huh." Well, it wasn't like being in the Circle offered much in the way of a guaranteed long life or any possiblility at all of being allowed to have and raise one's own children. Still. "I kind of want to stab something right now," commented Olivia.

"As long as it isn't me, go ahead. Especially if it's Morrigan."

Both far sooner and later than Olivia would have liked, they arrived at the ferry crossing to reach the Circle Tower. "Remind me why I wanted to come here first?" muttered Olivia, feeling nervous and unsettled at the sight.

"To gloat, remember," Morrigan reminded her.

"Oh yeah," said Olivia, feeling slightly better. "That was it. Okay. As much as I would like to take you along to witness my gloating, Morrigan, I really think you and Bethany should stay here. If they figure out you're mages the Templars will try to lock you up at best, and we'll have to kill them. Which I wouldn't actually be opposed to, but it would completely defeat the purpose of coming here for help fighting the darkspawn."

"We'll…just go wait in the inn, then," said Bethany.

"Might as well get rooms," suggested Olivia. "I don't know how long this is going to take."

The group split up, with Morrigan and Bethany heading to The Spoiled Princess Inn and Olivia, Alistair, Leliana, and Dusty the mabari walking up to the dock and its single Templar guard.

"Hey, you!" shouted the guard. "You don't want to go to the tower, do you? Because I have strict orders not to let anyone through."

"Yeah, well, this is kind of important," said Olivia. "We're Grey Wardens and we need help combating the Blight."

"Yeah, right," said the Templar belligerently. "Prove it."

"Listen, pal," Olivia began.

"You're not getting across this lake, and that's final!"

"Fine." Olivia turned as if to walk away, then whirled around and delivered a swift uppercut to the Templar's jaw, stunning him and knocking him off the dock into the shallow water. "Man, that felt good. Quick." She jumped in the boat and grabbed the oars, motioning for the others to join her.

"We just knocked a Templar into Lake Calenhad and stole his boat," said Alistair dazedly while they were shoving off from the dock.

"Always wanted to do that," said Olivia dreamily. "Of course, when I imagined it, I was going away from the tower, not towards it."

When they arrived in the tower's antechamber, it was swarming with Templars. The huge metal panic doors were shut and there were Templars standing in front of them with swords ready. Gregoir was in the middle of the room giving orders. "Whatever you do, don't open those doors for anything, and keep them guarded at all times." The Templar he had been speaking to ran off and Gregoir looked grim. "Now we wait and pray."

"What happened here?" exclaimed Olivia, throwing up her hands. "I was only gone for, like, two months, and everything's gone insane!"

"Oh, it's you," said Gregoir unenthusiastically.

"What happened?"

"None of your business, Grey Warden."

"I think it is," snapped Olivia. "As a Grey Warden, I have a right to know what happened. Considering, you know, that there's a Blight going on and the Circle is required to help fight it, and all."

Gregoir sighed. "We've lost control of the tower. It's filled with abominations and demons. We were too complacent. First the Jowan incident, then this. And don't think that I've forgotten your role in Jowan's escape," he added.

Olivia rolled her eyes. "Yeah, whatever."

"Soon reinforcements will arrive from Denerim with the Right of Annulment," Gregoir continued, not paying attention to Olivia's interruption.

"They'll arrive with the what?" shrieked Olivia, furious.

"There is no choice. We have to destroy everything in the tower to make it safe again."

Olivia refrained from pointing out that the tower, being filled with terrified, desperate prisoners ready to snap and do something extreme, had never been safe. It wouldn't help her case. "Are you insane?" she yelled. "There are probably still innocent people trapped in there!"

"If there are any still alive, the Maker himself has shielded them. Nobody could have survived those… things."

"You mean you couldn't have," said Olivia coldly. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go save everyone." She stomped over to the doors, followed by Alistair, Leliana, and Dusty. "Open that door and let me through!"

The Templars guarding the door looked at Olivia, then at Gregoir, then back at Olivia. They opened the doors. As she marched angrily through, Olivia heard Gregoir call after her. "Fine! But I'm not opening those doors for anyone short of First Enchanter Irving himself!"

The first couple of rooms they passed, the apprentice dormitories, were empty save for overturned furniture and one or two dead bodies which Olivia tried not to look to closely at but still recognized as people she'd grown up with. After they had passed the dorms, they arrived in the room containing the basement entrance, where they were greeted by the sight of one of the senior enchanters, Wynne, killing a rage demon in the opposite doorway while a cluster of older apprentices stood farther back with several children. Olivia recognized Petra, as well as Kelli, a woman she didn't know very well who spent all her time in the Chantry doing penances because she bought into the idea that mages were inherently evil.

"You! You came back!" exclaimed Wynne, staring at Olivia in surprise. "How did you get here? Did Gregoir let you through? Are they going to attack us?"

Olivia attempted to answer the deluge of questions as well as she could. "I yelled at people until they let me in, sort of, and not yet. The Right of Annulment hasn't gotten here yet. Actually," she added. "Considering how hard it is to travel during a Blight, it might not arrive at all. Not that I'd count on that."

"So Gregoir truly thinks we're beyond hope then," said Wynne sadly. "After leaving us to die they would kill the survivors themselves."

"I'm pretty sure the official Templar stance is that we're beyond hope from the moment of our births," pointed out Olivia. "Now they just have an excuse to kill us. Apparently, they're willing to hold off on that, though, if Irving says everything is safe."

"So we need to find the First Enchanter."

"And kill all the monsters. No biggie."

"Be careful of becoming overconfident."

"That was sarcasm. At the very least this is going to be incredibly strenuous and time consuming. Also, 'we'?"

"I'm coming with you."

"If you want to," said Olivia dubiously, taking in Wynne's determined expression. "Dusty, stay and guard the kids." The mabari barked and moved into a protective position in front of the group of children. "Let's go."

The next room was empty, but as they entered the library, they were set upon by three abominations. The formerly human monsters were quickly dispatched but had an annoying habit of exploding into balls of flame when killed. Luckily, Wynne's healing abilities were able to fix up their burns. After that, they were attacked just about every time they turned a corner.

On the second floor, they found Owain, the Tranquil in charge of stockroom, standing in his usual place and looking just the same as ever. "Please refrain from going into the stockroom," he said in a monotone. "It is a mess and I have not been able to get it into a fit state to be seen."

Considering that the 'mess' probably consisted of horribly mutilated corpses, Olivia found this to be very disturbing. "I think my fear of Tranquility just got a lot worse," she said, staring in horror.

"I was trying to tidy up, but there was little I could do," said Owain, not seeming to understand the reason behind Olivia's alarmed reaction and just making it worse.

"Don't you want to leave this…" she gestured around at the gore-filled room.

"I tried to leave when things got quiet. That was when I encountered the barrier. Finding no other way out, I returned to work."

"Oh, Owain, you should have said something," said Wynne.

"It wouldn't have occurred to him," said Olivia darkly. "The Tranquil don't really have any creativity. Considering how incapable Tranquil are of individual thought, I'm surprised he even tried to leave at all."

"The stockroom is familiar," said Owain in his monotone. "I prefer to be here."

"Haven't you run into any abominations at all?" asked Alistair.

"No. Perhaps I was lucky."

"Perhaps abominations are just as disturbed by the Tranquil as sane people are," muttered Olivia.

"I would prefer not to die," said Owain. Olivia was surprised to hear that he actually cared one way or the other. "I would prefer it if the tower returned to the way it was. Perhaps Niall will succeed and save us all."

"Niall? What's he got to do with anything?" Olivia remembered a friendly man with reddish hair who liked to spend time in the second floor library. He hadn't seemed the heroic sort.

"He came here with several others and took the Litany of Adralla."

"The what?" asked Alistair.

"It protects from mind control," explained Wynne. "Is this blood magic?"

"I do not know," said Owain.

"Niall would," said Wynne. "He was at the meeting where Uldred started all this and everything went bad. I was afraid that there was blood magic involved."

"Isn't there always?" said Olivia.

"We should find this Niall fellow, then," said Leliana. "Then we can use the Litany of Adralla to protect ourselves from the blood magic."

"I wish you luck," said Owain. "Perhaps this will all be over soon and things will return to the way they were." Olivia shivered.

As soon as they left and went into the second floor library, they were attacked by blood mages. Two of them fell with stab wounds from Alistair and Leliana's weapons, but the third was knocked to the ground and didn't attack again when Olivia advanced on her.

"Please don't kill me!" she yelled.

"I'm pretty sure that the people you killed didn't want to die either," snapped Olivia, inwardly wondering what in the world she was supposed to do with an enemy who had surrendered- she couldn't kill her now, but what exactly was she supposed to do instead, lock her in a closet? They'd never had this problem before. "Why exactly should we let you live?"

"Please! We only want our freedom. Don't you remember what it was like to live here, trapped, Templars watching your every move, ready to kill you or make you Tranquil at any moment?"

"I never went crazy and started killing everyone in sight, though," Olivia pointed out.

"It was supposed to be a revolution! We thought…someone always has to take the first step, force a change…"

That much was true, really. Olivia knew that. But, still… She felt like crying. "Not today, though. Not like this. Doing this to resist the Templars… using Blood Magic, killing innocent people… you're letting them drag you down to their level. If you let them drive you to do something like this, then they win, because they'll have turned you into the thing they're so afraid of. Somebody has to choose to be the better person, or else what's the point?" She blinked rapidly, trying to stop treacherous tears from sliding out of her eyes. "Get out of here. Leave the tower, just…leave. Don't ever use blood magic again. It's not- it won't help anything. Just get out of here." Olivia's companions seemed rather surprised at her uncharacteristically serious monologue.

The woman just looked ridiculously relieved and grateful. "Thank you. I'll do what you say." She stood quickly and left.

"What was that about?" asked Alistair incredulously. "She was totally playing you!"

Olivia glared at him. "Well, I guess it worked, then."

He looked a bit concerned. "All right. If you ever want to talk about it…" he didn't finish.

Olivia shook herself. "Let's just focus on the monsters, shall we?" She was greatly regretting coming here, necessary as it was both to get allies and to save lives.


	6. Chapter 6

Ch. 6 In Which Demons are Annoying

They fought their way up a couple more floors until they reached the penultimate level of the tower. As soon as they had reached the top of the stairs, however, a wave of sleepiness washed over them. A demon loomed up ahead. "Well, well, what's this," it said in a slow voice. "Four new victims? And one of you looks so much tastier than any of the others in this tower. You look exhausted. Why don't you take a break? The world will go on without you."

Olivia's first instinct was to point out that since they were the only Grey Wardens around and there was a Blight going on, it actually probably wouldn't, really, but she was just too tired. Her eyes slid closed and she collapsed bonelessly to the floor.

Olivia opened her eyes to a tall blond man shaking his fingers in front of her face. "Olivia? You in there?" He looked and sounded a bit like a younger version of her father. "We're going to be late."

Olivia frowned. Her head felt cloudy. "Late for what?"

"The party. You know, the one commemorating the tenth anniversary of how you stopped the Blight and abolished the Templar Order, freeing our people? The one that you've been talking about for months now? That party?"

Olivia frowned again. Shouldn't she remember that? It certainly seemed like something that she'd remember. "Um, what?" She rubbed her eyes. For some reason her vision was so blurry. "When did that happen?"

"Ten years ago. As evidenced by the whole 'tenth anniversary' bit."

"Who are you, anyway?"

The man looked extremely concerned. "I'm your brother. Alen. Are you feeling all right? Do you have amnesia or something?"

That couldn't be right. "You're dead. The Templars killed you."

"Oh, come on. You didn't get a chance to look at the body, did you?"

"No!" The blurriness of her surroundings suddenly made a whole lot more sense. "This is the Fade! You aren't Alen!"

His voice deepened. "Does it matter? This is everything you want, so, so badly. You can have it here, in the Fade."

"I'd rather make my dreams reality, thanks," snapped Olivia, sending a blast of fire at the fake Alen, who twisted into a demonic shape and fell, a huge hole in its chest. "Besides," she added over the dead demon's body. "No creepy demon impersonates my big brother and gets away with it!"

A strange, circular podium sprung up from the ground where the demon had fallen. Olivia examined it. It was covered by strange-looking symbols, two of which were glowing faintly. She poked the center symbol, one of the ones which were glowing, and the world shifted.

"I see you got out of that trap."

Olivia looked up at the speaker. "Niall? What happened?"

"The sloth demon trapped us here. I got out of the dream it trapped me in, too, but this is as far as I got. This place is like being in a maze with no way out- there's always some sort of barrier in the way- doors that only demons can use, holes only big enough for mice…"

Olivia rolled her eyes. "Niall, this is the Fade. Dreams are controlled by the mind. Reality here is only what we think it is. For example-" Olivia concentrated on the air in front of her, thinking of Alistair and imagining a door, which slowly shimmered into existence. "My friend should be through there." Olivia put her hand on the doorknob and stepped through.

Behind her, she could hear Niall muttering. "How does she do that? That is not normal."

On the other side of the door, Alistair was standing and talking to a woman who looked a bit like him, while several children played around them. He looked up as Olivia entered. "Olivia!" he exclaimed happily. "It's so good to see you. I want you to meet my sister. Olivia, Goldanna, Goldanna, Olivia."

He sounded so enthusiastic. "Alistair. It's time to go."

"But you just got here!"

Olivia sighed. "Alistair, what were we just doing?"

This stumped him. "Um…"

"It involved the Circle of Magi…" Olivia prompted.

Alistair rubbed his eyes. "We were… in a tower? That doesn't make sense."

"It does in the sense that you've fallen asleep in said tower. This is the Fade."

Alistair's eyes widened. "There was a demon!"

The fake Goldanna looked at Alistair. "Nonsense!"

He glared at her. "You aren't real!"

'Goldanna's' body twisted and shifted into the form of a demon. "You will stay with us!"

"No!" A sword appeared in Alistair's hand and he instinctively ran the demon through. Alistair blinked at the sword. "Where did that come from?"

"It's a dream. It came from your mind."

"So… we've been trapped in dreams by that demon?"

Olivia nodded. "We need to find Leliana and Wynne." Concentrating on thinking about Leliana, she imagined a second door, which shimmered into existence much as the first had.

Alistair stared at the door. "They didn't teach me too much about the Fade in Templar training, but I'm pretty sure people aren't supposed to be able to do that."

Olivia rolled her eyes once more and grabbed his hand. "Come on."

On the other side of the door, Leliana was kneeling beside an altar, praying. Something that looked like a woman in Chantry robes stood next to her. "Leliana?" Olivia called out.

She looked up, seeming confused. "When did you get here?"

"We need to go now."

"But…"

"You promised to help us defeat the Blight, remember?" Leliana frowned. She seemed to be remembering.

The demon next to her glared at them. "Why do you disturb her peace?"

"Because it's a trap? Because you're a demon. Pick one."

Leliana stood up, frowning. "We were in a tower, weren't we?" She began to walk toward Olivia and Alistair.

"No!" The demon shrieked, twisting into its true form and lunging for Leliana, who swung smoothly around and stabbed it with a knife that appeared out of thin air.

Olivia blinked. "Wow. Good reflexes. Seriously, where did you learn that?" Leliana looked a bit awkward.

Olivia materialized a third door in the air before them, thinking of Wynne. She pushed it open, ignoring Leliana's confused comment of "is that normal?" and walked through.

Wynne stood in the midst of a group of fallen demons, glowing with a faint violet light. "Um, Wynne?" Olivia asked tentatively. That was certainly not normal.

Wynne jumped. "I can explain everything!" That didn't sound very good. "It's not a demon, okay? It's a spirit of Faith. There are good spirits in the Fade, too. I needed help protecting the children and it came to help me."

This day was just getting better and better. Olivia rubbed her forehead. She was pretty sure she was getting a headache. In the Fade. She wasn't sure that was even possible. "You know what? I don't want to know. Don't go on any murderous rampages and we'll pretend that none of this ever happened. Let us never speak of this again."

Olivia concentrated on creating another doorway, this time focusing on the sloth demon that had trapped them here.

The demon looked up as they walked towards it. "What do we have here?" It questioned. "A rebellious minion? An escaped slave?" It laughed, the sound echoing. "My, my, but you do have some gall. Playtime is over. You have to go back now."

Olivia folded her arms. Wynne glared at the demon. "You cannot hold us here, demon! We found each other in this place, and you cannot stand against us!" Despite her vow to never think of it again, Olivia found herself musing that she could see why the Faith spirit had been drawn to Wynne.

The sloth demon didn't think much of Wynne's announcement. "If you go back quietly, I'll do better this time. I'll make you much happier."

"I think I'll make my own happiness, thanks," said Olivia. "What I want can only make me happy by being real, not a dream. I suppose that's where your mistake was."

"Can't you think about someone other than yourself?" asked the demon patronizingly. "I'm so hurt by your selfishness."

"Thinking about people other than myself is exactly what I'm doing," said Olivia calmly. "Unless the other person is you, in which case I don't care."

"So be it," snarled the demon, lunging at Olivia with claws extended. She leapt out of the way, causing the demon's attack to overbalance and it to land on the ground. Olivia smirked and sent a fireball flying at the demon, which was only slightly scorched. She frowned.

Alistair, Leliana, and Wynne snapped to attention and began attacking the demon as well, their combined attack driving it backward until Alistair finally landed a fatal blow.

"So…" he said, looking around. "What now?"

"Now we wake up," said Olivia. "Somehow."

"Yes, but…"

"You did it!" Niall appeared a little bit away from them. "I didn't think anyone could defeat the sloth demon."

"That's probably why you weren't able to," pointed out Olivia. "Believing is pretty important in the Fade."

"Actually, I'm pretty sure you're just weird," said Niall. He shook himself. "That's not the point. When you wake up, you need to take the Litany of Adralla from me and use it to defeat Uldred and the other blood mages."

"And you can't take it yourself because…?"

"I've been here too long," said Niall. "My body is dead by now. You need to take the Litany and stop the blood mages. Promise me."

Olivia felt sick. She walked up to him and put her hand on his shoulder. "I promise."

Niall smiled tearfully. "I just wasn't cut out to be a hero, I guess."

"You are a hero, though. Because you tried to help."

Niall smiled. "That's nice of you. Remember, take the Litany off my..." he choked. "My body. Stop the blood mages."

"I will," promised Olivia.

The Fade began to dissolve around her and she woke up on the hard, cold stone floor of the tower, Alistair, Leliana, and Wynne beginning to stir around her. Olivia struggled to her feet, feeling bleary and stumbled over to Niall's body. She pulled the parchment with the Litany out of his pocket. "Bye, Niall," she whispered.

The quartet finally reached the room containing the staircase to the Harrowing chamber at the top of the tower. "I have to say," commented Olivia, "hiding out on the top floor of the tower is a really good deterrent for anyone coming up here to stop these people. At the very least any enemies would be exhausted from climbing all those stairs."

"Oh, no…not this again!" Everyone turned to stare at the corner, where a Templar was kneeling behind a magical barrier.

Olivia stared. "Is that Cullen? He's still alive and apparently not possessed? He's a lot tougher than I thought. He always seemed like a really nervous, stutterey person."

"Go away demons!" shouted Cullen. "I won't listen to anything you say! Why did it have to be her? Using my shameful desire against me…"

Olivia blinked at him. "Wait, what?"

He closed his eyes. "Go away! You're not real! Not real! Not real!" He opened his eyes. "You're still here? But…"

"This is awkward," muttered Alistair.

Olivia frowned at Cullen. "Hold on… do you have a crush on me or something? Because that would be incredibly inappropriate. Considering, you know, the power differential present between mages and Templars, which would totally not lead to a healthy relationship, especially considering the fact that I would never be able to respect your life choices since they involve becoming a Templar."

Cullen stared at her. "This is new. Normally you demons try to seduce me, not make big speeches about healthy relationship choices."

Olivia groaned. "This is officially the worst day I have ever had. It has finally beaten out the time Jowan ran off and left me to take the rap for him. That actually turned out pretty well in the end, considering I got to become a Grey Warden." She glared at Cullen. "All right. Not hallucinations. Not demons. Actually here. Going to go kill the demons and blood mages and save everyone, now."

"You can't save them!" exclaimed Cullen. "If even one blood mage gets by they'll start all over again!"

"Not killing innocent people, either!" Olivia stomped up to the door to the Harrowing chamber and stormed through the door, dragging her companions behind her.

Uldred stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by a trio of abominations. "Okay," said Olivia loudly. "Whose bright idea was it to try and use my face to seduce a Templar to your cause?"

"That was me," said Uldred cheerfully.

Olivia glared at him. "Now it's personal." She lobbed a fireball at his head. Uldred had a moment to look surprised that she would just attack before the overpowered, rage-fueled fireball exploded, taking his head with it. The abominations leapt at Olivia and her companions, one of them managing to slash a hole through the arm of Pandora's old linen shirt before Olivia managed to freeze it and Alistair cut its head off and Leliana stabbed the remaining two abominations in the backs. "Worst. Day. Ever." Olivia repeated, pulling out a handkerchief and pressing it to the bloody gash on her arm.

"Here." Wynne sent a healing spell at Olivia and the wound closed.

Olivia smiled gratefully. "Thanks." She walked over to Irving and the two younger mages who were lying next to the wall. "Hey Irving, Surana, and blond guy I don't know, somehow."

"That's 'cause he's never here," said Surana helpfully as Olivia helped him and Irving stand and the blond got to his feet on his own. "He's kind of an escape artist."

"It's true," said the blond cheerfully. "In fact…" He attached a rope to one of the windows and began to rappel down the outside of the tower.

"Huh," said Olivia. "Where'd the rope come from?"

"Uldred," explained Surana. "For some reason."

Olivia shrugged. "Well, I guess we should go tell Gregoir not to kill anyone now."

After climbing back down the half-dozen sets of stairs and collecting the apprentices who had been with Wynne, as well as Cullen, Owain, and a few mages who had managed to hide or barricade themselves in rooms- including a mage who had been hiding in a closet the entire time- he wasn't going to live down the to the requisite jokes about that anytime son- they got back to the panic doors and Irving convinced Gregoir to let them through. "I told you not everyone was dead," Olivia said triumphantly.

"Yeah, yeah," grumbled Gregoir. "Listen, how about you don't tell anyone we left them all to die and were going to kill them all if they managed to survive long enough for the Right of Annulment to get here and we help you fight the darkspawn."

"It'll get out anyway and you're legally obliged to help me fight the darkspawn, but I'm pressed for time, so, sure, whatever," said Olivia.

"Anders has probably told half the town by now, anyway," muttered Surana.

Olivia hit him on the back of the head. "Way to rat the man out, Surana."

"He escaped again, didn't he?" asked Gregoir tiredly.

"Yes," answered Irving.

Olivia glared at him. "Narc. Now I'm glad I ransacked your office and took anything valuable, interesting, or pretty."

"What?"

"I mean, the blood mages ransacked your office. And took anything valuable, interesting, or pretty. The blood mages. Time to go." She grabbed Alistair and Leliana's collars and darted out the door, Dusty following on their heels.

Wynne sighed. "I should probably go with them. They seem to need someone sane." She hurried out the door surprisingly quickly, likely worried that someone might try to stop her.

They found Morrigan and Bethany at the docks. "Where have you been?" complained Morrigan. "She's been dragging me around doing good deeds for this mages' collective organization."

"I'd think you'd at least be glad they're paying us," said Bethany. "It's not like I haven't been splitting the money with you."

"There was an uprising," explained Olivia. "It's kind of a long story. Oh, Morrigan." Olivia pulled out a thick black book that she had found in Irving's office. "Here. I think this is your mother's. The inside cover says 'this book belongs to Flemeth'."

Morrigan looked delighted. "Mother's grimoire! I can't wait to find out everything she's been hiding from me!" She snatched the book and immediately began to read, despite the fact that they were walking.

"Can we go to Redcliffe next?" asked Alistair hopefully, while Morrigan was too distracted to argue.


	7. Chapter 7

Ch. 7 In Which There are Zombies and Olivia Acquires an Assassin

Despite constant bickering between certain party members, the entire group arrived at Redcliffe in one piece. Before they could enter town, however, Alistair stopped, looking nervous. "There's probably something I should tell you," he began. "Before you find out anyway."

That was never a good sign. "What? Is Arl Eamon your father or something?" asked Olivia.

"No- why does everyone think that?" Alistair took a deep breath. "Arl Eamon isn't my father. King Maric is."

Olivia blinked at him. "Why is it that nothing even surprises me anymore? Have you been angsting over me finding out about this for the past two weeks?"

"Everyone always treats me differently because of it!"

"Don't worry," said Olivia. "I promise to continue to treat you as just another poor fool too unlucky to die with the rest of the Grey Wardens. Just like me. Though if this is the reason Loghain wants us dead I'm going to punch you for not telling me why he's so desperate to get rid of us," she added after a moment.

"Um, I think it might be, actually. That and he needs a scapegoat."

Olivia punched Alistair lightly on the arm. "Next time you know something relevant to why someone might want to kill us, mention it."

Alistair looked a bit chagrined. "Sorry. Seriously, though, why does everyone think that Arl Eamon is my father? I don't even look like him," he complained. "Even his wife thinks it." They started walking again. "That's why she sent me to the Chantry to become a Templar. I got so mad I smashed my mother's amulet against the wall."

Ouch. Olivia winced. "If my sort-of-foster-parent did that, I'd have, too."

"Um, why is the road blocked?" cut in Bethany.

The lone guard in front of the wooden barricade looked uncomfortable. "It certainly isn't because the Arl got sick and then the town came under attack from zombie hordes coming from the castle. Not at all."

"That was a suspiciously specific denial," commented Leliana.

Olivia sighed. "It's always something. Who's in charge?"

"Bann Teagan."

"We need to see him."

"But…"

"We need to see him."

The guard looked at Olivia's determined expression. "Okay."

They were led down to the Chantry, which was filled up with desperate, worried people. Alistair ran up to a man in the middle of the building. "Bann Teagan! What happened here? Where's Arl Eamon?"

The man looked at Alistair in apparent surprise. 'You're alive! Good to see that someone is all right. Eamon's still in the castle, horribly ill. Also, zombies keep coming down from there and attacking us. It's been awful. I hate to ask, but…"

"How can we help?" asked Alistair before Bann Teagan could finish.

"Well…"

And that was how the group ended up splitting up and running around town to convince the holdouts to actually get up and fight to protect themselves from the zombies.

"Do these people have any common sense at all?" complained Olivia. "It's like they want to be eviscerated by zombies."

"I think Loghain had the Arl poisoned," announced Leliana. "He hired someone to 'watch for changes'."

"Why am I not surprised?" Everyone sat in silence halfway up the path between the village and the castle alongside the Redcliffe knights. "How long do we have until the next zombie attack?

Leliana looked at the sun. "About five hours?"

"Ugh. Hey who's up for cards?"

Twenty-seven games of Wicked Grace, five rounds of truth-or-dare, six campfire stories, and several songs later, the sun set and zombies began to shamble down the hill.

The zombies weren't very fast. The problem with them was that long range attacks didn't seem to do much to them. Because they were already dead, things like arrows to the eye and holes in the chest failed to really stop them. Olivia had to stop sending fireballs at the zombies because it just turned them from murderous walking corpses into burning murderous walking corpses that set fire to everything around them. They had to settle for waiting for the zombies to get in close before hacking them to pieces that eventually stopped twitching.

The zombies were carrying weapons and much stronger than rotting dead things had any right to be. Despite Wynne standing back behind the battle line and healing anyone who was too badly hurt, everyone was battered and covered in injuries by the time the zombies stopped coming down the path. Olivia frowned. "Ah, shouldn't there be more of them?"

Ser Perth, the leader of Redcliffe's knights, nodded suspiciously. "Yes. Usually, they keep coming all night."

"Then why…" Before Olivia could finish her sentence, one of the town's militia ran up the path from the village.

"They're coming over the lake and attacking the village!" he yelled, gasping for breath. "We're going to be overrun!"

"That explains that," commented Olivia. She nodded at Ser Perth. "You and the other knights stay here and make sure they don't start coming down this way again." She turned to her own group. "Come on!"

She ran down the path to the village, firing off a quick succession of ice spells when she got within range of the zombies assaulting the barricades in front of the Chantry. The militiamen who had previously been busy being pushed backwards under the weight of numbers, looked relieved to see reinforcements coming and began fighting back more viciously.

After what felt like forever, the zombies stopped coming up from the docks, and the man that they sent up to check on the path came back to report that there were no zombies attacking there, either. The battle was finally over.

The next morning, Olivia and the others were standing outside the mill at the bottom of the path, looking up at the castle. "Now that we've killed all those zombies," said Teagan, "It might finally be safe to go investigate the castle."

"Well, re-killed, really," said Olivia, "but yes…Is that a person?" Everyone looked at the path, where a blonde woman was running toward them. "How is she moving so fast in that tight skirt?" marveled Olivia.

"Teagan!" wailed the woman in a thick Orlesian accent as she skidded to a halt next to them. "You have to help me! Connor's in trouble! You need to come back to the castle with me!"

"Connor? What's wrong with my nephew? Let me get everyone and…" began Teagan, but the woman interrupted him.

"No! You have to come alone!"

Teagan looked at the woman for a moment. "All right. Just a…"

"Hold on," said Olivia. "You aren't seriously going to walk into an obvious trap?"

"Who the hell are you people?" asked the woman rudely, looking at the rather mismatched group.

Alistair sighed. "Grey Wardens. Remember me, Isolde?"

She looked surprised. "Alistair? Argh! I thought I'd gotten rid of you for good!"

Olivia frowned at her, eyes narrowing. "Wait a minute- is this the same person that sold you out to the Chantry so they could turn you into a mindless, brainwashed, drug-addicted minion because she thought that you were her husband's son?"

"Um, yeah," Alistair admitted awkwardly.

Olivia glared at Isolde. "That is so Orlesian. You are a horrible person. I hate you."

"Okay," said Teagan loudly. "Let's save this conversation for later." He grabbed Olivia's collar and pulled her away from Isolde. "Listen," he whispered. "I'm going to go with Isolde. Take this," He handed Olivia a ring, "and use it to unlock the secret passage in the mill. I'm not walking into an obvious trap without backup."

"It seems to me that not walking into an obvious trap at all would be a better option," pointed out Olivia.

Teagan ignored her. "Coming, Isolde," he called, following her away up the path to the castle.

"This is a horrible idea," commented Olivia as they left.

Olivia climbed awkwardly up the ladder at the end of the secret passageway and looked around. "Does this secret passage seriously lead to the dungeons? Who even does that? If one of the prisoners managed to get out of their cell they could just leave without anyone even noticing!"

"I think the point was that if the castle was ever taken and the arl was thrown in his own cells then he could escape easily," said Alistair helpfully.

"That sounds like a bit of a far-fetched scenario. If someone took the castle, they'd probably just kill the arl."

"I suppose…" began Alistair.

"Hello?" An irritatingly familiar voice called out from one of the far cells. "Is someone there?"

"Oh, no," groaned Olivia. She walked over to stand in front of the cell. "Jowan."

"You're alive!" He had the gall to look happy.

"And not even a zombie or anything," she snapped. "No thanks to you!" The only thing preventing Olivia from throwing a punch was the fact that the cell bars were in the way. "What happened? Besides you obviously moving on to ruining other people's lives," she added.

"This is not my fault!" Olivia glared at him. "Mostly. All I did was try to teach the arl's son to control his magic!"

Everyone ignored Alistair's shocked exclamation of "Connor's a mage?"

"And I guess it was partially my fault that the kid freaked out and used his magic to summon demons to try and save his father's life because I'm the one that poisoned him," Jowan conceded. "But only partially! If you let me out I can help fix this."

Olivia looked at him flatly. "Right. Come on guys." She turned around to leave, the others following her.

"Please!" yelled Jowan. "Olivia! I just want a second chance!"

"You've had a second chance!" She snapped back at him, furious. "You bought it with my life and look what you've done with it!" Alistair opened his mouth to say something. "Not one word!" Olivia snarled. Alistair wisely kept quiet.

They had to fight their way through half the building in their search for Connor. They found Valena, Owen the blacksmith's daughter, hiding in a closet and convinced her to take the secret passage out of the castle, but otherwise there seemed to be no one other than themselves alive.

They found a possessed Connor in the great hall, surrounded by mind controlled minions and a miserable-looking Isolde. "So these are the visitors you told me about, Mother? The ones who defeated the soldiers I sent to reclaim my village?" asked Connor in the sort of eerie, echoing voice that generally indicated possession.

"Yes, Connor," stuttered Isolde. It was impossible to tell if she was frightened or sad.

'Connor' peered at Olivia. "It's staring at me, Mother. Why is it staring? What is it?"

"Did you just call me 'it'?" asked Olivia irritably.

"That's a woman, Connor," said Isolde. "Like me."

"Not like you." 'Connor' stared more intently. "I think I should kill it."

"Connor, no!" wailed Isolde.

'Connor' attacked anyways. The fight was actually over pretty quickly, mainly because Morrigan had the forethought to fling a sleep spell over Teagan and the soldiers, whose mental defenses were pretty low from already being under mind control. Connor staggered backward. "Mother? What's happening? Where am I?"

"Connor!" cried Isolde.

The demon snarled, turning and running from the room.

Teagan groaned from the floor, drawing Isolde's attention to him. "Teagan! Are you alright?"

"Well, I don't feel mind-controlled anymore," Teagan said woozily.

Isolde looked relieved. She seemed to remember that Olivia and the others were there. "Please, Connor isn't responsible for any of this! And he's still in there! You have to help him!"

"Well, I'm not going to kill a ten-year-old," said Olivia, feeling a bit offended that Isolde might be worried about that.

"There is a way to help," offered Wynne. "It would require someone going into the Fade to kill the demon there, though, and we don't have enough lyrium for that."

"The circle does," pointed out Olivia.

"Do we actually have time to go all the way to the circle and all the way back?" said Morrigan.

"Maybe. You and Bethany can stay here, just in case."

"Why am I in the group that might have to kill a ten-year-old?" asked Bethany. "That's horrible."

"Because," Olivia told her quietly. "I want someone here to keep Morrigan from going ahead and killing Connor while there are still other options, and it would be a bad idea for you to come to the circle with us in any case."

"Oh." Olivia was relieved that Bethany seemed to understand her reasoning.

The circle agreed to help Connor instantly, mainly because Irving and Gregoir both felt indebted to Olivia.

On the way back to Redcliffe with the lyrium, the party ran into a distraught woman screaming for help. "My caravan's being attacked by bandits!" she wailed dramatically, "Right over this way! Help me!" She dashed back in the direction she had come from and everyone automatically ran after her.

When they got to the caravan, however, it was very obviously not being attacked by anything. Olivia suddenly had a really bad feeling about this. Especially when a giant tree trunk crashed down blocking the road behind them. The woman that they had followed walked up to a very good-looking blond elf armed with a pair of daggers and turned around to face them and smirked nastily, lightning beginning to build around her hands. Because of course she was a mage. This couldn't be good. The elf drew his daggers. "The Grey Wardens die here!" Brilliant.

Archers popped up from the surrounding rocks and Olivia ducked behind a crate, sending a wave of ice at the mage and her handsome, murderous friend. Then things got interesting.

When the fight was over, the only enemy left alive was the dagger-wielding elven man. Olivia poked him with a boot. He groaned and stared blearily up at her, looking slightly concussed. "I rather thought I would wake up dead. Or, well, not wake up at all. But I notice you haven't killed me yet."

Olivia rolled her eyes. "Who are you and why were you trying to kill us? The fact that you obviously knew we're Grey Wardens suggests that you have a specific reason other than the usual motive of robbery."

"Let me get right to the point," he said. "My name is Zevran. I am a member of the Antivan Crows brought here to kill any surviving Grey Wardens. Which I have failed at, sadly."

"Personally I'm rather happy that you failed," pointed out Olivia.

"So would I be, in your shoes," said the assassin. "For me, however, it sets a rather poor precedent, doesn't it? Being captured by a target seems a tad detrimental to one's budding assassin career."

"Maybe you should look into a new line of work, then," said Olivia sarcastically.

"Maybe." He looked a bit like he was honestly considering it.

"So, who hired you?"

"A very grumpy fellow in the capital. Loghain, I think his name was. Yes. It was definitely Loghain."

"Not that I'm complaining, but you seem awfully quick to sell out your employer," Olivia commented.

"Well, he isn't paying me to keep quiet. Or at all, really. It's the Crows that get paid, not me."

Olivia looked at him incredulously. "You seriously aren't getting paid? At all?"

"Nope. Severance package is a sword in the gut, so that's rubbish too. I wouldn't exactly suggest joining the Antivan Crows." That honestly sounded like the worst job ever.

"Why would anyone even become an Antivan Crow? Seriously, I can see absolutely no plus side."

The assassin shrugged. "Personally, they bought me on the slave market as a child. He got a thoughtful expression on his face. "On the subject of how awful it is to be in the Crows, there's something I'd like to discuss with you." Olivia raised her eyebrows at him. "Here's the thing," he explained. "Since I failed to kill you, the Crows will kill me. That's how it works. The thing is, I, not being suicidal, am obviously rather attached to my life. And you seem like the sort of person who could kill anyone the Crows send to kill me. So, let me work for you instead."

Olivia was rather skeptical of this. "Right. And I suppose I can expect the same level of loyalty toward me."

He seemed a bit offended. "I happen to be a very loyal person, right up to the point where someone expects me to die for failing. That's not too unreasonable, really." Olivia had to admit that it wasn't. "At this point, even if I killed you, they'd probably kill me for failing the first time, so you don't have to worry about that, eithe."

Olivia sighed. She really hoped she didn't regret this, but… "Fine."

"What?" Alistair sounded incredulous. "You're taking the assassin with us, now? In what world does this seem like a good idea?"

"One where we have practically no allies and an assassin could be incredibly useful?" asked Olivia. "We need all the help we can get."

"I suppose…" Alistair still didn't sound very happy. "Still, if there was a sign we were desperate, I think it just knocked on the door and said hello."

"Welcome, Zevran," said Leliana, ignoring Alistair. "Having an Antivan Crow join us sounds like a fine plan." Olivia was glad at least one person agreed with her. Zevran smirked and made a smooth comment on Leliana's looks. She glared at him. "Or maybe not, if he's going to spend the entire time flirting."

Olivia held out her hand and helped Zevran up. He looked serious. "I pledge my oath of loyalty to you, until such a time as you choose to release me from it. I am your man, without reservation. This I swear." Olivia thought he meant it. Then again, she'd also thought that Jowan had meant it when he said he wasn't a blood mage.

By the time they got back to Redcliffe, Connor was still alive, as were everyone else. Olivia found herself more relieved than she'd thought she would be to find that no one had killed anyone else.

Irving cast the spell to send her into the Fade, which was as creepy and disorienting as is always was, the area she was in filled with echoes of Connor and Arl Eamon wandering about calling out for each other. Olivia kept running into the demon, which looked like Connor but was rather obviously not actually a child. Eventually the demon appeared in a circle of rocks in its actual form. It looked rather like a purple, horned woman. "Very well," said the demon. "No more illusions. Now we meet face-to-face. You see my true form and stand in my domain." Olivia had the feeling that the demon was growing just as tired with Olivia's persistence in hunting is as Olivia was in doing the hunting. "It is here that I am most powerful," continued the demon. "Yet I have no desire to engage your power, nor should you be so eager to engage mine. Perhaps we should converse, instead?" Oh, here it came. The 'let's make a deal' speech.

"Whatever it is, forget it," said Olivia, flinging the Fade equivalent of an ice spell at the demon. The demon tried to blast her with some sort of energy burst from its hand, but she dodged. Olivia was getting really good at dodging things lately. Lots of practice.

Olivia materialized a knife in her hand and stabbed at the demon with it. The demon looked shocked. "How did…?"

"It's a dream," pointed out Olivia. "Anything goes." Seriously, why did nobody see that?

The demon glared at her and vanished. Copies of the demon reappeared in a circle around the edge of the ring. All of them were shooting energy blasts. Wonderful. Maybe she shouldn't have made the 'anything goes' comment. Olivia spun around. Only one of the copies looked actually substantial. Well, as substantial as things got in the Fade. Olivia glared at the demon and clenched her fist. The demon looked unimpressed, right up until the spike of stone Olivia was growing out of the rock behind it speared it through the chest. The demon looked shocked for a moment before it collapsed and Olivia woke up. "I really hate the Fade," she muttered.


	8. Chapter 8

Ch. 8: In Which Olivia Makes a Detour and Goes to Denerim

As it turned out, killing the demon freed Connor, but did nothing to heal Arl Eamon. "At least the demons are gone," said Bann Teagan sadly. "Eamon is going to be horrified at what happened here if he ever wakes up, but at least he can be thankful that both his wife and son are safe."

"Safe-ish," added Olivia. "The Templars are bound to take Connor away as soon as the tower is fit for habitation and nobody who's going to the Circle as a mage can ever actually be 'safe'."

"There's still the problem of Jowan, as well," said Teagan, ignoring her. "He's the one who started all this by poisoning Eamon and now I have to figure out what to do with him. We can keep him locked up for Eamon to decide what to do with for a while, but if he doesn't recover, then we'll have to do something eventually and Jowan will be my problem. What do you think?"

Why was he asking her this? Olivia felt tired. "Based on everything I know? I'd actually suggest killing him."

"This isn't about him betraying you, is it?"

Olivia shook her head. "No. Honestly? If you do anything else short of letting him go, which obviously isn't going to happen, the Templars will eventually get their hands on him and make him Tranquil. I'm not really the type for mercy killings, but that's a fate I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, much less the person who watched my back for ten years, even if he did eventually double-cross me and is a complete idiot."

Teagan looked uncomfortable. "Anyway, Eamon is remains in a coma and we still need to find a way to heal him. I think it's time to go back to the original plan."

Olivia looked at him. "I have no idea what that is."

"The Urn of Sacred Ashes."

"Nobody knows where the Urn is," pointed out Olivia flatly. "That was your plan?"

"There's a scholar in Denerim named Brother Genitivi who probably does know where it is, actually," said Teagan. "He's been looking for the Urn for years now."

"The knights we sent couldn't find him, but perhaps the Maker will lead you to him," added Isolde hopefully from the corner of the room.

Now both Teagan and Isolde were looking at her expectantly. Olivia realized that she wasn't getting out of this. "To Denerim it is, then."

The next night in camp, Morrigan came up to Olivia, looking nervous. "I…need your help."

Olivia frowned. "What's wrong?"

"Remember the grimoire you gave me? As it turns out, it's not my mother's actual grimoire. It does, however, have a rather disturbing section in it."

That didn't sound good. "What does this section entail?"

"It's about how she has lived for so long." This was beginning to seem ominous. "You know how there are legends of several witches of the wilds? All of them are Flemeth. She will have a daughter, then, when she's about to die, she will take over the daughter's body. I'd rather obviously prefer if that did not happen to me, and if I want to be safe then Flemeth has to die. She'll probably be able to come back from it, but if you bring me her real grimoire then I can figure out how to protect myself from her. The only problem is that if I'm anywhere nearby when she dies, she'll take over my body anyway. Someone else has to do it for me. That's what I need your help with. Will you help me?"

Well. That was incredibly creepy and horrible. "Of course I'll help," said Olivia reassuringly.

And that was why Olivia ended up leading the group on a detour back to the Korcari Wilds and Flemeth's hut.

As Olivia and her companions, minus Morrigan, arrived, Flemeth was standing outside of the hut, looking almost like she was expecting them. "And so you return. Lovely Morrigan has finally found someone willing to dance to her tune. Such enchanting music she plays. Wouldn't you say?"

"We know your secret, Flemeth," said Olivia calmly.

Flemeth laughed. "Which one, though. I have lots of secrets. What has Morrigan told you? What is she plotting this time?"

"She knows how you've lived this long."

"I admit that she does. The real question is, whether you do. Ah, but it is an old, old story. One that Flemeth has heard before, and even told. Let's skip right to the ending, shall we? Are you going to kill me like Morrigan wants you to? Or is the story going to go in a different direction?"

Olivia cocked her head. "I think I'll take option one. I've been betrayed enough times to not want to do the same to one of my own friends."

Flemeth looked amused. "Such loyalty. This is familiar. Come on then." Flemeth walked over to more open ground and transformed into a dragon. Well, at least that explained how she'd gotten Olivia and Alistair out of the Tower of Ishal.

Killing the Flemeth dragon was much easier than Olivia would have expected. Suspiciously easy, in fact. Olivia got the feeling that Flemeth had planned this entire thing out, though there wasn't much she could do about it. She got the grimoire out of the hut and returned to camp, where she gave the tome to Morrigan. "Ah," said Morrigan, looking pleased and a bit relieved. "You got Mother's real grimoire? I'm glad you were able to find it after all. My thanks for retrieving it. I shall begin unlocking all her secrets- er, I mean figuring out how to protect myself immediately."

"She's probably going to be able to come back from this, you know," pointed out Olivia. "Killing her was far too easy."

Morrigan nodded. "It'll slow her down, though, which is the most I could have hoped for. Thank you."

The rest of the trip to Denerim was long but uneventful. Olivia actually spent a lot of the time talking to Zevran. At first she was really just sounding him out to find out whether or not he was planning on getting around to assassinating her, but pretty soon he started to grow on her. It was partially the constant flirting, but mainly it was because he actually reminded her quite a lot of herself. On the outside that would probably seem a bit odd, considering that she was a mage and he was an assassin and one wouldn't expect much overlap between the two, but they had both been dragged into the Circle and the Crows respectively as children, neither of them had exactly been given a chance to choose what they wanted to do with their lives before, and they both had pretty much the exact same coping mechanism of hiding how they really felt about things underneath an outer shell of flippancy, though Zevran's version did tend to involve more flirting. By the time they reached Denerim, everyone else in the party had decided that they were a couple. To be quite fair, they now assumed the same about Bethany and Alistair as well.

"I just don't understand it!" Alistair commented to Leliana. "Why would anyone go for someone like that?"

Leliana smirked. "The fact that you have to ask just proves that you're straight."

Alistair groaned.

Bethany sitting next to him, laughed. "If it makes you feel better, I don't understand it either. I guess he's just not my type."

Alistair seemed much happier. "And what is your type, then?"

Bethany smiled at him. "Adorable, sweet blonds, of course."

All right, everyone kind of had a point with the assuming that Alistair and Bethany were together. Or, well, courting. They acted so sappy around one another that you could almost see the hearts and flowers. The other day he had given her a rose. A rose. The most clichéd thing ever.

"Olivia," said Wynne kindly, "I think we need to talk about this."

Olivia looked at her blankly. "Why?"

"You and Zevran are quite taken with each other, aren't you?"

"You've got that right," said Olivia cheerfully.

"I've noticed your relationship, and I wanted to ask where you thought it was going," continued Wynne.

This sounded just a tad ominous. "We have a lot in common and I enjoy his company. It's probably going somewhere," she admitted.

"That's what I'm worried about," said Wynne. "You have responsibilities as a Grey Warden and I'm worried that you'll neglect them."

"I can handle having a relationship without ignoring my responsibilities," said Olivia, annoyed.

"Can you? One day, you might have to choose between saving him and saving everything else. Then what will you do."

Olivia almost groaned. She was pretty sure that this conversation was brought on at least partially by the Circle's brainwashing. "Wynne. One of the things which Zevran and I have in common is we both understand that when you could die any day, spending all your time angsting is pointless. You need to take what happiness you can when you can or you'll miss out on it entirely. We also have enough common sense to realize that 'saving everything else' is the priority." She wondered if Wynne had had this conversation with Alistair as well, talking about Bethany.

Wynne still didn't look very happy. She looked even less happy when Olivia walked away from her and headed straight over to Zevran. Olivia didn't care.

In Denerim, they didn't find Brother Genetivi. They did, however, find someone impersonating his apprentice and notes suggesting that he had gone to some village in the Frostbacks called Haven. "It just had to be all the way on the other side of the continent," complained Olivia.

They also found Alistair's sister. Who turned out to be absolutely horrible to both of them when he and Olivia went to meet her. When they left her house, Alistair looked like a kicked puppy. "That… that harpy…. Is my sister? I hoped that…"

Olivia felt sorry for him. "Most of the time, people just want to look out for number one."

"Your family isn't like that."

"My family is not exactly the statistical norm," Olivia pointed out. "About half of us are mages. We all keep pretty big secrets belonging to the others and have to look out for each other to survive, so loyalty is a big priority for us."

"It's just…. Argh." He made a frustrated sound and wandered off, looking unhappy. Bethany walked up to him and gave him a one-armed hug, smiling. Alistair looked slightly less dejected.


	9. Chapter 9

Ch. 9: In Which There is Existentialism and Metaphors

Haven was filled with cultists. When they arrived, the inhabitants immediately tried to get them to turn around and leave. Olivia had to argue with the two guards that had stopped them for five minutes before they agreed to let them stay just long enough to restock on supplies. "Is it just me, or is something seriously strange about this town?" asked Olivia.

"It's not just you," said Zevran cheerfully. "You would not believe what I found in that house over there. Or maybe you would," he added thoughtfully.

"What did you find?" asked Olivia with a sense of foreboding.

"Besides the rather disturbing blood covered altar?"

Olivia groaned. "Just once, I'd like for something to happen without complications."

They found an exceptionally large group of cultists in the Chantry led by a mage who ordered the cultists to attack them. They also found Brother Genetivi locked up in a side room, where he was lying on the ground with a broken leg.

Genetivi confirmed that the Urn was there and led them up the mountain to an old temple that appeared to be in two parts on either side of a bridge. As soon as they entered the temple, Genetivi became instantly distracted by the carvings on the walls, which he hobbled off to look at.

Olivia realized that Genetivi wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. "All right," she said to her companions. "Whoever wants to see the Urn enough to fight their way through the inevitable horde of cultists in this place raise their hands. Everyone else gets to stay behind to guard Genetivi and wait for us to get back." Zevran and Morrigan looked uninterested, but Alistair, Wynne, and Leliana raised their hands instantly. Bethany shrugged and did the same.

It was Olivia and the four who had raised their hands that continued onward into the temple. As it turned out there were, indeed, quite a lot of cultists to fight their way past. In the final room of the section of the temple they were in, they were stopped by an armored man with particularly crazy eyes surrounded by a large group of cultists. "Oh, wonderful," muttered Olivia.

"You have defiled out temple, you have spilled the blood of the faithful and slaughtered our young." His voice even sounded crazy. Also, Olivia was wondering what he meant by 'young', considering that all the humans they killed were obviously adults but had killed quite a few dragonlings. Disturbing. "No more," continued the crazy man. "You will tell me now, intruder, why you have come here."

"We're looking for the Urn of Sacred Ashes," Olivia informed him.

That really set him off. He went on some sort of rant about dragons and Andraste reborn and the Ashes keeping her from being 'restored to full glory' and a guardian preventing them from getting at the Urn to destroy them. Then he looked like he'd had an idea. "You could help. If you put the blood of the reborn Andraste in the Ashes then she could regain her full power."

He really was crazy. "Yeah, no," said Olivia. The cultists attacked.

When the cultists were dead, the Olivia and the others walked out the door onto the bridge. It was a straight shot to the final part of the temple and, presumably, the Urn. That was when the dragon attacked. Lovely.

"Well," commented Olivia when that particular bit was over, "at least now we get to say that we slew a dragon. That'll make a good story."

When Olivia's party reentered the temple after crossing the bridge, they found a columned room with a door at the far end, in front of which stood an armor-clad man with a winged helmet. "Welcome, pilgrim." The man's voice echoed slightly more than it probably should have, even considering the room's architecture possibly causing echoes. "I am the guardian, the protector of the Urn of Sacred Ashes. I have waited years for this. You are the first to arrive in a very long time. It has been my duty, my life, to protect the Urn and prepare the way for the faithful who come to revere Andraste. I have been here longer than I can actually remember, and I shall remain until my task is over and the Imperium has been destroyed completely."

So he was… what, a ghost? Immortal until the Urn didn't need protecting anymore? "Who are you, though?" Olivia asked. It seemed more polite than 'what are you?'

"I am all that remains of the first disciples. I swore I would protect the Urn as long as I lived, and I have lived a very long time. I lost count after about a century."

That wasn't really an answer, though it did seem to bear out the 'immortal' theory. A question that had been burning in the back of Olivia's mind for a long time came to the forefront. "So- did you know Andraste?"

"Did anyone really know her except for the Maker? She would sometimes spend weeks alone in meditation, often without eating or drinking anything."

"But you met her, right? So…" Olivia had to know. "How did she mean it? When she said that 'magic is meant to serve man and never to rule over him'. That's kind of cryptic, isn't it? What did she really mean?"

The guardian just looked at her calmly. "What do you think?"

And that was a non-answer to the question Olivia had been stewing over ever since she was old enough to figure out that everyone hated her guts for existing. Nice. Damn guardian. "Fine. I don't really need an answer, anyway." Olivia's voice shook and she was pretty sure that everyone could tell that the she was lying through her teeth. "Can you show us to the Urn?"

The guardian looked at her with the same calm expression he had worn the entire conversation. Olivia, feeling unsettled and upset- and actually showing it for once, instead of her protective shell of bravado, was pretty sure she hated him for being so calm. "You have come to honor Andraste, and you will. If you're worthy."

"Great. So now you get to judge if we're worthy or not?"

"It is not my job to decide if you are worthy or not. The gauntlet does that. If you are found worthy, you will see the Urn and be allowed to take a small pinch of the Ashes for yourself. If not…"

That sounded a bit ominous. "The gauntlet? So… we have to put on some kind of magic glove that judges our character?"

"No… the gauntlet is a series of traps and tests that tells the true pilgrims from the false. You will undergo four tests of faith, and we will see how your soul fares."

"Oh, you mean a gantlet," realized Olivia. That made more sense. There didn't seem to be any avoiding it. "All right. I suppose I'm as ready for this as I'll ever be."

The guardian nodded. "Before you go, there is something I must ask. I see that you walked a difficult path to arrive here."

"Well, yeah, there were darkspawn all over the place."

"Not what I meant. I meant that your past is filled with suffering. Both yours and others. Your parents died protecting you and your brother from the Templars and his fate you never discovered, all because you and your brother were mages. Tell me, do you feel like you failed your family?"

Wow. The guardian was really going to go there? Olivia looked at the guardian flatly. "I was ten, what could I have done? It wasn't my fault that the Templars found out. I was angry about it for a long time, but keeping grudges isn't exactly conducive to survival. So, no, I didn't fail them. It's not my fault that people are horrible."

The guardian looked at her calmly. "People are horrible, you say? Yet you trust your comrades."

Olivia shrugged, some of her flippancy coming back. "None of them are particularly bigoted and, like Alistair said once, the potential end of the world is great for bringing people together."

The guardian looked at her for a long moment. "And what about them?" He turned to the others. "Alistair. You wonder if things would have been different if you had been on the battlefield at Ostegar. If you could have saved him Duncan. If you should have died and not him."

Alistair looked down. "Yes. If Duncan had lived instead of me, everything would be better. If I just had the chance, maybe I…" Olivia found it rather alarming that Alistair thought so little of himself. She suspected that he had been purposely instilled with low self-esteem to keep him from ever becoming competition for Cailan.

Wynne looked at the guardian with determination. "Go ahead and ask your question, guardian. I can take it."

"You identify as an advisor, always ready with a word of wisdom. Do you wonder if you spout only platitudes burned into your mind in the distant past? Perhaps you are only a tool of Circle and the Chantry. Do you ever doubt what you believe?"

Apparently the guardian had picked up on the brainwashing. And didn't seem to approve. Olivia's estimation of him rose a bit. "You already know my answer to that," Wynne told him. "Yes, I doubt myself sometimes. I would be a fool not to."

"And you," said the guardian, turning to Leliana. "Why do you say that the Maker speaks to you, when everyone knows he only spoke to Andraste. Do you think yourself her equal?"

Leliana looked upset. "I never said that. I…"

"In Orlais you were important. People knew who you were and, therefore, so did you. In Lothering, you were afraid you would forget yourself and fade away. You liked the attention."

She glared at him. "You're saying I made it up? I did not! I know what happened."

The guardian looked at Bethany last. "Do you ever wonder what you are doing here? What an ordinary farmgirl with a bit of magic could possibly do to aid Grey Wardens? You feel that you are just a burden, brought along because your mother insisted."

Alistair looked annoyed with the Guardian. Bethany frowned. "I pull my weight."

"Not to mention she's the most well-adjusted person in the group," Olivia added in an undertone. "You're the sane one," she said louder to Bethany. "If you think we don't need you, you're wrong. This group would have fallen apart ages ago without you." Her cousin smiled.

The guardian inclined his head. "The way is open. Good luck, and may you find what you seek." He vanished in a flash of light. Bizarre. Olivia really had no idea what he was, at all.

Olivia stepped past him through the doorway, followed by the other four. The next room was a long hall with alcoves lining the walls in each of which stood a ghostly figure of a different person. Olivia walked up to the first one, a woman with short hair and a pinkish dress. The figure began to speak. Some kind of riddle.

Well, Olivia supposed there was a long tradition behind using riddles for things like this. "Um, a dream?" Probably. She couldn't really think of anything else that would fit.

Apparently that was the correct answer, because the ghostly woman smiled and went on a long-winded dramatic explanation about how that riddle fit her life which Olivia tuned out while everyone else paid rapt attention to.

The figure vanished and across the room, the handle of the door turned slightly. So. Answering riddles was how to get the door to open. Olivia went up to the second figure.

Slowly, Olivia worked her way across the room. Each of the figures asked a riddle and, when she answered, cryptically introduced themselves before vanishing. Olivia wondered vaguely whether they were actual ghosts of people that Andraste had known, but decided it was more likely that they were just illusions. After the last riddle had been solved, the door swung open.

The next room contained a single figure of a man facing away from them. He turned.

"Had fun with the riddle game?"

Olivia sighed. "Jowan. I know you're not actually him, you know. He's in Redcliffe."

"So, am I a spirit or is all this in your mind?" asked the apparition with a smirk. "Are you in the Fade? Honestly, I don't know. I am part of the gauntlet,"

"Gantlet," interjected Olivia.

"…I am Jowan, I am you. All these statements are true."

"Very existential," said Olivia. "Why are you here?"

"To talk to you, and to give you some advice. You've come so far since the last time I saw you."

"A month ago?" Asked Olivia skeptically.

"Your imprisoned life in the Circle has been put behind you. You are free of that past, and nothing is going to hold you back. Be strong, my friend, do not falter. Warden." He smiled at that final word. Olivia decided that she rather liked this version of Jowan better than the one she'd left in Redcliffe. It was like he had been before he'd fled the Circle leaving her to a probable fate worse than death. "I have something for you," said the apparition. "Use it well. It makes me happy to know you'll be the person I couldn't be. You're going to be absolutely amazing." With a blinding smile, he pressed something small and metal into her hand and vanished. Olivia looked at it. It was some sort of necklace. Kind of pretty. She shrugged and put it on. It probably wasn't cursed.

She looked around at the others. They all seemed to be unsettled. Alistair looked about to cry.

"Did you all see that?" asked Bethany.

"Probably not the same thing as you, but yes," said Olivia. She wasn't going to ask what the others had been seeing. The five of them shook themselves out of their individual thoughts. "Let's just move on."

As soon as they entered the next room, they had to dodge out of the way of a fireball. "What?" Olivia got the feeling that no one had exactly been expecting to be attacked. Especially not by what was attacking. Pale, ghostly, versions of themselves were charging at them. Olivia automatically froze the fake Alistair in place before jumping out of the way as the fake Bethany threw another fireball at them. She took back what she'd said to the Jowan apparition. Now this was existential.

The doppelgangers were hard to beat. The copies seemed to know all of their own tricks. It was incredibly disturbing.

"What was that?" asked Alistair when the fight was over and all of the ghostly doppelgangers had vanished.

"Some kind of existential metaphor?" suggested Olivia. "'You must conquer your personal failings before continuing' or something? I really have no idea."

"Perhaps everyone gets tested against themselves in some way to pass," said Leliana. "We are fighters, so we had to beat ourselves in a fight."

That sort of made sense.

The next room had a puzzle in it. It took three people standing on pressure plates in the right order to make parts of a bridge appear across a pit in the right order so that someone could cross and stand on a pressure plate on the other side to make the entire bridge appear at once so the others could cross as well. Complicated and strange.

"It seems Andraste favored the clever," said Alistair. Bethany snickered.

"Maybe it's a value of teamwork or friendship or trust sort of thing," pointed out Olivia from the part of the bridge in center of the pit surrounded by black nothingness. "I mean, it takes at least four people, so teamwork or friendship, and if one of you stepped off the wrong plate at the wrong time I'd plummet to my doom, so trust. Or it's just a test of intelligence. Could be that, too." This place was really beginning to get to her. She wondered what would have happened if only three of them had come.

Once everyone was across the pit, they entered a large hall lit by torches. At the far end stood a raised dais on top of which was an altar holding an urn, behind which was a truly enormous statue of Andraste. The way to the dais was blocked by a line of fire. There was a second, smaller altar standing just in front of the flames with some sort of inscription on it.

"By the Maker," said Alistair, sounding awed. "It's the Urn of Sacred Ashes. That's it. It's really it."

Olivia moved forward and looked at the inscription on the small altar between them and the fire. There was another riddle on it. It sounded…Well, this was going to be embarrassing, especially if she was wrong. "I think we have to, well, take our clothes off to get through the fire." Nobody seemed particularly keen to try. Olivia rolled her eyes and grabbed the hem of her shirt. "Alistair, turn around." He turned red and immediately spun to face away.

Olivia stripped as quickly as possible and walked up to the fire. It didn't feel hot anymore. She closed her eyes and jumped through. Nothing happened except that she ended up on the other side of the fire. "It worked!" Bethany threw Olivia's clothes over and the other three women started taking off their own and flinging them across the line of flames.

"Really?" asked Alistair, still looking away.

"I suppose the fire is also some sort of metaphorical, existential construct. That only burns you if you're wearing clothes."

After some awkward shuffling around in which everyone undressed, crossed the flames, and put their clothes back on all while attempting to preserve their modesty as much as possible, the guardian appeared out of thin air behind them. He crossed over the line of flame without taking off anything. Olivia wasn't even going to ask. "You have been through the trials of the gauntlet," announced the guardian. "You have walked the path of Andraste and like her, you have been cleansed." Metaphorically and existentially, Olivia supposed. "You have proven that you are, indeed, worthy. You can go to the Sacred Ashes now."

The guardian vanished into thin air again and the five of them began walking up the steep steps of the dais. Alistair, Wynne, and Leliana stared at the Urn in awe. Olivia walked forward, took a tiny pinch of the ashes and put it in a small pouch, followed by the others.

They walked back down the steps and over to one of the side doors next to the dais, Olivia's companions still looking stunned. As they left the temple, Olivia hung back a moment, looking back up at the Urn. "Did you mean it?" she asked quietly. There was no answer. Olivia turned and let the door swing shut behind her. Time to move on.


	10. Chapter 10

Ch. 10: In Which Bizarre Twists of Fate Can Happen to You, Too

Olivia was silent the entire trip back through the temple. When they reached the antechamber where a very bored Morrigan and Zevran were playing a game of Wicked Grace while Brother Genitivi took rubbings of various carvings on the walls, Alistair, Leliana, Wynne, and Bethany ran forward excitedly. Morrigan and Zevran packed the cards away, looking relieved.

"You're finally back," commented Morrigan, sounding exasperated. "It's been incredibly dull out here."

"In retrospect, we should probably have gone with you," added Zevran. "Nothing happened out here the entire time."

Morrigan nodded at Genitivi. "After listening to him for a couple hours, we would have welcomed a few cultists to fight."

Brother Genitivi didn't seem to mind that Morrigan and Zevran were completely tired of having him around. He bounded up to Olivia and the others. "Did you really see it? The Urn?" He was practically jumping up and down in excitement.

Olivia nodded silently, realizing that she should probably answer.

"What was it like?" Genitivi sounded like he was choking up.

Olivia really didn't want to talk about this. At all. In fact, at the moment, all she wanted to do was go somewhere quiet and think. Or brood. "We got what we came for," she said shortly. "We have a chance to heal Arl Eamon now."

"Surely there must have been something more to the Ashes than that," said Genitivi. "Did you really feel nothing standing before the Ashes?"

Olivia was not in the mood for this. She glared at him. Zevran looked concerned. Alistair, Leliana, Wynne, and Bethany, who had all heard Olivia earlier, looked like they were feeling varying degrees of discomfort.

Brother Genitivi looked awkward for a few moments, before returning to his earlier enthusiasm. "We need to organize an expedition! Everyone needs to have the chance to see the Urn!"

Morrigan snorted. "And exploit it, too, I suppose."

Olivia felt too tired to care. She began to walk towards the doors. "You know what?" she said to Genitivi, waving her hand vaguely over her shoulder at him. "You do that."

Genitivi squealed in excitement, clutching his papers to his chest.

Genitivi stayed behind in Haven to continue studying the temple. Everyone else left, getting a little ways down the mountain before it began to get dark and they had to stop. Later, in camp, Zevran came over to Olivia while she was sitting on a log next to the fire and sat down next to her. "Someone as beautiful as you should not have such a frown on her face." Olivia said nothing and he didn't speak for a moment. "In all seriousness, though. Something that happened with those Ashes has got you all upset. Want to talk about it?"

Olivia sighed, gazing into the flames. "When we started getting closer to Haven, I began to think about things that I hadn't let myself really ponder before because it would just drive me crazy wondering and I didn't want to turn into one of those people who broods all the time." She picked up a stick from the pile of firewood next to the log and threw in on the fire, watching the flames crackle and snap at it. "For a while there, I hoped that maybe I might get some answers, but…" She sighed again. "Maybe there's power in the Ashes, but there are no answers there. Or maybe it's just that there just aren't any there for me."

"So, the Great Quest for the Urn of Sacred Ashes didn't do anything for you, is that it?"

"Actually," said Olivia pensively, throwing another stick onto the fire. "I think it did, just not because of some magical power they have. I didn't get the answers I wanted, but you know what? So what if practically everyone thinks being born a mage makes me a monster? Templars would lock me up for the rest of my life if I weren't a Grey Warden, people, maybe even Andraste, hate me for having the guts to exist… They can all go jump in a lake. They don't know me, and I'm going to prove them all wrong- if only to myself," she added quietly.

"That's deep," said Zevran, after a while. "You sure the Ashes didn't do some weird magic thing to you?" he added jokingly.

Olivia smiled. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure that I'm more disillusioned than buoyed up by faith and awe or whatever. My whole deep personal realization thing comes from me, not some outside force, same as everything else I'm going to do."

Zevran smiled. "What did I say? Real deep."

Olivia continued to sit on the log next to Zevran, feeling much better after their conversation. Across the camp, Alistair, Wynne, Leliana, and Bethany were animatedly discussing the Urn standing around an extremely uninterested Morrigan, who looked completely fed up with the entire thing.

"You know what you need after all this running around, killing cultists, and having major life realizations?" Asked Zevran after a while.

"No, but I think I'm about to find out," Olivia answered with a quiet laugh.

Zevran smirked. "My thought is this- we go to your tent and I show you the sort of massage skills you can only pick up in an Antivan whorehouse."

Olivia raised her eyebrows and smirked back at him. "Why Zevran, are you propositioning me?"

"Oh? Do you want to be propositioned?" he asked, voice full of innuendo.

"Oh?" said Olivia. "This is sounding more and more interesting." Her day was suddenly getting much better than it had been that morning in the temple filled with cultists.

Zevran smirked back. "And if I might ask, if the opportunity to proceed past the massage might present itself…?" Oh yes, this day was getting much, much better.

"Oh, hell yes," said Olivia.

Zevran smiled. "Then why are we still talking?"

Early the next morning, Olivia woke up to find Zevran lying beside her. "Morning," he said, propping himself on his side with one arm.

Olivia sighed happily and moved closer, closing her eyes. "Let's not get up this morning. Let's just forget about the Blight for a few hours and stay right here."

He laughed. "As nice as that sounds, we probably should get up. Before everyone assumes that I've gone and assassinated you after all."

Olivia groaned, sitting up and reaching for her shirt. "Ugh. Good point. They'd probably come barging in here and that would be such a fun conversation. For a definition of 'fun' meaning 'annoying and awkward'."

"Really, though," said Zevran as they left the tent and Olivia began poking up the fire that had mostly died down in the night before her sleepy brain remembered that she was a mage and she simply added more wood and shot a fire spell at it, "this was all inevitable. Right from the moment you refused to kill me."

Olivia smiled. "Yes, you're a real public menace," she said laughingly.

"It's true. There used to be a sign at the Antivan border." He sighed in over-exaggerated nostalgia. "Ah, the good old days."

"Maybe they should have just stuck the sign on your forehead."

"Possibly. So. What now?"

Olivia laughed quietly. "That is the very question I was just about to ask you."

Zevran shrugged slightly. "Throughout my life I learned to grab onto happiness when I could because it was neither long-lasting nor common. "So, I suppose it's up to you."

"One day at a time then, I guess," said Olivia.

"I must admit," commented Zevran, "we have come a long way from those early days when I tried to kill you and you decided not to kill me."

"Well, these things happen," said Olivia. "Usually to other people, but I got used to being one of those 'other people that these things happen to' somewhere around Ostegar."

Everyone was, for various reasons, in pretty good spirits throughout the journey from Haven to Redcliffe. Leliana, Alistair, Bethany, and Wynne were still thrilled about having gotten to see the Urn, Olivia and Zevran were happy for obvious reasons relating to their relationship, and Morrigan was just glad to be away from the cold, cultist-filled mountains.

Alistair was especially cheerful once they'd arrived and brought the Ashes straight to Irving and the other mages who had helped save Connor, who were still hanging around the castle. Olivia was at least partially certain that they were using the need to be there to heal Arl Eamon immediately when the party got back as an excuse to not go back to the tower. She didn't blame them. The result of that was that within a couple hours of their return, Arl Eamon standing up and walking around again. Olivia had to admit, even if there was nothing else special about the Ashes, their healing powers were certainly not exaggerated.

Alistair's good mood took a nosedive, however, when Arl Eamon announced his plan for getting rid of Loghain. "I'm going to go to Denerim to call for a Landsmeet of all Ferelden's nobility," explained the Arl, "and try to convince them that Loghain shouldn't be the one leading the country. I could put forward a claim to the throne myself, but that would just make me look like a power-grabber- we need someone who has an obvious claim to the throne stronger than Loghain's." Oh, Olivia could see where this was going. Arl Eamon gestured dramatically. "King Maric's other son, Alistair."

"What? No!" wailed Alistair. This was obviously a complete shock to him.

"Is anyone here actually surprised by this?" Olivia asked the others in an undertone, while Eamon and Alistair were arguing.

"I am," said Zevran. "But no one ever bothered to tell me that he's related to this King Maric fellow."

Olivia felt a bit guilty over that. "It never came up. Also, I'm pretty sure everyone mostly just forgot that you weren't there the only time it did."

"Well, these things have to happen to someone, I suppose," said Bethany. "Otherwise they wouldn't be a thing that happened. If that makes sense." It sort of did.


	11. Chapter 11

Ch. 11: In Which Werewolves Are, Apparently, Actually Real

Eventually, Alistair agreed to go along with Eamon's plan for the sake of getting rid of Loghain, who he apparently hated more than the idea of being king, and the Grey Wardens and company were basically shooed out of Redcliffe to go collect the remainder of the allies compelled by the treaties to help them, which was how they found themselves walking through the Brecillian Forest, looking for a clan of Dalish elves that was supposedly somewhere in the area.

"If I wanted to wander around in the forest, I'd have stayed at home," griped Morrigan.

"I'm sure we'll run into someone eventually, said Leliana optimistically. Morrigan rolled her eyes.

"Stop!" A pair of elves appeared from nowhere out of the trees. Leliana looked smug. "We've been watching you wander around for days," said one of the elves. "Why are you looking for us?"

Olivia spared a moment to be both mildly disturbed at the thought that they had been observed without anyone noticing for so long and annoyed that the elves had been watching them wander around without saying anything. Probably laughing hysterically. "We're Grey Wardens. We need to speak with your Keeper."

The elves looked at one another and had a hurried, quiet conversation. "Fine," said the one who had spoken earlier. He seemed disgruntled.

The Dalish camp was not far from where they had been. "Keeper Zathrian!" called out one of their escort.

A bald, robed elf turned to look at them. "Yes?"

"There are Grey Wardens to see you."

The keeper sighed. "Let me guess; you have come to ask us to honor our agreement to aid the Grey Wardens in combating the Blight." Well, at least they didn't have to explain what they were there for. "Normally we would, of course, do so instantly, but at the moment we have our own problems." Of course. Everyone did. The keeper gestured behind him, where Olivia now saw a large number of elves lying on cots and blankets, looking ill. "There are werewolves in the forest, mindless monsters that have been attacking our clan and infecting our people with their curse."

Olivia blinked. "Werewolves."

"Werewolves are real?" Bethany asked behind her.

Keeper Zathrian nodded. "And most of our hunters are succumbing to the curse, those that haven't already been turned into werewolves, that is. If I could just get the heart of Witherfang, the leader of the werewolves, I could use it to create a cure."

Olivia politely refrained from groaning and holding her head in her hands. "So, if we could bring you this Witherfang's heart, you could save your hunters and help us fight the darkspawn."

Keeper Zathrian looked happy. "Would you?" Olivia nodded. "Wonderful! Witherfang is smaller than the other werewolves and the only one of them that is white- all the others are brown. Bring me his heart and I'll be able to heal my people and help you. Their lair is in some old ruing off somewhere in that direction," he added, pointing.

Olivia nodded. "Right. We'll be back." She turned and strode out of the Dalish camp, followed by her companions.

"Everyone wants something," grumbled Morrigan.

"I'm guessing that these kinds of detours are normal?" asked Zevran.

"Very," said Olivia, stepping over a log. "We went to the Circle of Magi and had to fight a tower full of demons, abominations, and blood mages. We went to Redcliffe and had to fight a zombie horde, get a small child un-possessed by a demon, and go find the Urn of Sacred Ashes, where we had to fight cultists and go through a bunch of tests of faith. Nothing ever seems to be straightforward. I don't even want to think about what we're going to have to do to recruit the dwarves when we get to Orzammar."

"Maybe nothing," said Bethany. "Maybe they'll help us immediately." Olivia looked at her flatly. "Okay, probably not," Bethany admitted.

They came up to a waterfall leading into a stream with a fallen log lying across it. Olivia climbed up on the log and crossed, followed immediately by Morrigan, who leapt up easily and sauntered over like she was walking on solid ground. The others looked reluctantly at one another and began to follow them.

Before anyone else could reach the other side of the stream, a group of werewolves melted out of the woods and appeared surrounding Olivia and Morrigan, who readied spells. "Olivia!" shouted everyone behind them. Morrigan looked a bit irritated, possibly because no one seemed particularly concerned for her.

The wolves, however, didn't attack. The one ahead of the others growled. "The watch-wolves were right." What. Olivia distinctly remembered Zathrian describing the werewolves as mindless monsters, but here they were, capable of talking. And apparently of organizing a guard.

One of the other wolves spoke. "Another Dalish pawn come to kill us."

Olivia stared at them. "That's not exactly why I'm here. Also, I find being called a pawn offensive."

"We do not care why you are here," said the first werewolf. "You're trespassing in our forest. I am Swiftrunner," said the wolf. "I lead my brothers and sisters in the curse." Swiftrunner growled again. "Turn back now, go back to the Dalish and tell them you have failed in your mission. Tell them we will happily watch them suffer from their curse. We will watch them pay!"

All right, there was definitely more going on here than Zathrian had said. "What do you mean by that?" asked Olivia. "I don't want to fight you. Just tell me what's happening. Really. I don't want to work with the Dalish if they're going around cursing people."

Swiftrunner growled. "It was Zathrian who sent you, was it not? He wants only to kill us all, not to negotiate!"

"I'd, on the other hand, am a great fan of negotiation. Conflicts don't need to be solved with violence," said Olivia earnestly.

Swiftrunner growled. "Leave our forest while you still can. Go back to the Dalish and tell them they are all doomed!"

"I don't want to fight you, but I need the Dalish. I can't turn back until this is solved. Talk to me!"

"I don't really want to fight you, either," admitted Swiftrunner, "but I can't risk trusting you." Swiftrunner turned, and the werewolves vanished back into the forest.

Olivia glared stubbornly after them. "Something very strange is going on here, and I'm going to find out what it is!" she vowed.

After everyone had crossed over the stream on the log, they set off through the forest in the direction that they had been going.

As they passed a clearing, the gigantic tree in the center shifted and straightened. It had a face. Everyone turned to stare at it. "What manner of beast be thee, that comes before this elder tree?" it asked slowly. The tree rhymed.

"Er, I'm Olivia. A mage." Olivia answered after a minute of gaping.

The tree waved one of its branches, which looked like an arm. "Allow me a moment to welcome thee. I am called the Grand Oak, sometimes the Elder Tree."

Wynne looked awed. "The things that exist in this world. It's amazing." Olivia had to agree.

"And if you thinkst it much too soon, might I ask of thee a boon?"

Great. Even the trees wanted something. "What sort of boon?" Apparently someone had stolen the tree's acorn and it was going to die without it. That… would be an incredible shame. "I'll get it for you," Olivia promised.

After a bit more aimless wandering about in the forest, they came upon a campsite where an old man in torn, rough clothing stood. He looked at them as they approached. "Well, lookie here. Not a werewolf or a spirit. Not even a Dalish. What are the woods coming to?"

"Yeah," said Olivia, rolling her eyes. "Got a werewolf infested, spirit filled forest, then the Grey Wardens move in and there goes the neighborhood. So, who are you?"

"Questions, questions, questions, questions! It was questions that drove me mad," he said as if confiding a great secret. Questions I'll only answer with questions but answers I'll answer with the same. It's a trade!" He giggled.

So, he was obviously crazy. But…

Olivia eventually got the whereabouts of the tree's acorn from him after a long, roundabout question and answer session and traded it to him in exchange for a scarf that she'd found in the forest earlier.

They headed back to the Grand Oak's clearing, and Olivia handed over the acorn to the rhyming tree, who (which? Olivia didn't know how to refer to a sentient tree) did some sort of magic thing to make the barrier stopping anyone from getting to the werewolves' lair think that Olivia and her party were more trees.

Whatever the tree did, it worked. They were able to walk through the line of mist in the forest and reach the ruins.

The ruins were… really pretty. If they hadn't been filled with attacking werewolves, zombies, and the occasional ghost, Olivia might have really enjoyed this. "Ooh, what's this?" Leliana was pointing at a small, glowing red gem sitting on the ground.

"Is that filled with blood?" asked Bethany, seeming a bit disturbed.

"I think it's some sort of phylactery," said Leliana. "Probably holding a spirit."

"I have to agree," Morrigan added.

"Shouldn't blood have dried up by now?" asked Alistair. Morrigan rolled her eyes.

Huh. Olivia cautiously held out her hand and poked the gem. It was warm. Memories not her own flashed in her mind, bright, shining images of things she had never seen. The mind inside the gem pulled back, flinching, memories of being trapped and lonely for a very long time. Who are you? Olivia didn't speak out loud, but the mind seemed to hear her anyway. She got the faint impression of an elven mage in brilliant, gleaming silver armor. You were a mage? Asked Olivia. The mind gave a sense of both agreement and disagreement. She saw more images of the armored elven mage, someone who was both a mage and a warrior. There was a name for that, along with the memories- 'arcane warrior', an order of elven mages who channeled magic into physical strength and fought to defend their people. Olivia was captivated. The mind in the gem could tell- the sense of an offer came- it would show her how to become an arcane warrior, giving her what memories it had, in return for what it desired most- oblivion. You'd teach me? Asked Olivia. The mind agreed, desperate, promising to give what memories remained to it, adding that whoever followed its path would become the last of its order. The mind in the gem seemed to want that, as well- someone to carry on its order's legacy. How can I help? Olivia got the feeling that she need to put the gem on an altar- the mind in the gem's thoughts became panicked, not remembering where to find the altar. Olivia stood up, holding the gem, and looked around. There was an alter only a few feet away. She walked over to it with the gem. The mind in the gem became overwhelmed with disbelieving hope, not really willing to trust that its ordeal was finally going to be over. It sent Olivia a question- did she still want to become an arcane warrior? Yes, she answered it. More memories flooded into Olivia's mind fragmented and hazy, but also brilliant and beautiful- she could understand the order of arcane warriors, and how to use their skills. Thank you. Olivia placed the gem on the altar. She could feel the mind's relief and joy as it faded from existence.

When Olivia came back to herself, she found everyone staring at her. "Um, Olivia?" asked Bethany carefully. "Are you all right? You were acting kind of… weird."

"Sure," said Olivia cheerfully, not going into details. "I'm fine. Let's go."

Bethany and the others looked dubious. "Are you certain?"

Olivia rolled her eyes. "Yes I'm certain. The gem didn't possess me or anything." They didn't look too sure, but seemed willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.


	12. Chapter 12

Ch. 12: In Which There are Negotiations

After wandering through the ruins a bit more, several wolves met them and, instead of attacking as the others had, bade them follow to speak to their leader. They were led to a large chamber with a tree growing in it filled with sunlight from a hole in the ceiling. The room was filled with werewolves, who growled and moved threateningly as they entered. However, before they were attacked something that vaguely resembled a woman but obviously wasn't one came forward, placing it's- her?- her hand on Swiftrunner's arm. The fingers ended in wood, the same sort of wood that twisted in tendrils about the- person's- ivory-colored body. Swiftrunner bowed, as did the other werewolves.

"Welcome, mortals." The personage's voice was soft- and echoing, but in a peaceful way rather than a disturbing one. "I am the Lady of the Forest." She certainly seemed a lady. There was just that feeling about her.

"Thank you," said Olivia politely. "I'm glad we're getting this chance to speak."

"Do not listen to her, Lady! She's working with the Dalish! We need to attack now!" Well, apparently Swiftrunner still didn't trust them.

"Hush, Swiftrunner," said the Lady softly. "Your responding to things by jumping into battle will only cause the deaths of the people you want to protect. Do you really want that?"

"No, Lady," said Swiftrunner. "Anything but that."

"Then the time has come to set aside our anger and speak with this outsider. I apologize for Swiftrunner. He struggles with his curse." Olivia decided that she liked the Lady of the Forest. And not just because she looked like an extremely attractive, naked woman.

"Don't everybody?" asked Olivia rhetorically. The Lady smiled. "So you lead the werewolves?"

"I helped them, and they are grateful for it. I give advice, but I do not tell them what to do. There are things Zathrian has not told you."

"I figured that much out for myself. What is really going on here?"

The Lady explained. Apparently, Zathrian was responsible for creating the werewolf curse, which he had unleashed upon a tribe of humans who had killed his children- horribly.

Olivia felt sick. "And so he cursed them in revenge."

Swiftrunner explained that Zathrian had summoned a spirit and trapped it in the body of a wolf, creating Witherfang, who had hunted down the human tribe, killing many and turning others into werewolves before learning to control itself and becoming the Lady as well, teaching the werewolves to do the same, bringing them peace and allowing their humanity to emerge.

"So you ambushed the Dalish to get revenge for Zathrian's revenge?"

"Partially," said the Lady. "Also we wish to end the curse. The acts that Zathrian created the curse to avenge were long ago, and the culprits dead for generations. Zathrian has ignored us every time we sent him a message asking him to come. We will not be ignored any longer."

"We spread the curse to his people so he must end the curse to save them," explained Swiftrunner. Okay, that kind of made sense.

"Please, mortal," begged the Lady. "Go to him. Bring him here. If he sees these creatures, hears their plight, surely he will end the curse."

Personally, Olivia suspected that there was no way that someone as consumed by revenge as Zathrian would do that, but… "I'll try."

The Lady smiled. "Thank you."

Olivia walked up over to the stairs and headed up them. At the top, Zathrian was waiting. Of course. "Ah," he said. "And here you are already. Did you get Witherfang's heart?"

Olivia crossed her arms. "No. I spoke to the Lady of the Forest. She wants to talk to you."

"You do realize that the Lady is Witherfang, don't you?"

"I believe it was mentioned, yes. The werewolves are no longer the savage, unthinking monsters you turned them into, Zathrian. They have regained their minds."

Zathrian looked disdainful. "I find that hard to believe. All they want is revenge."

"No, all you want is revenge. And your answer to this conflict is to let your clan suffer for your anger."

"Fine," said Zathrian. "I will speak to them. But what if all they want is revenge, will you protect me?"

Olivia rolled her eyes. "It won't come to that." Honestly, if anyone attacked someone, it would be Zathrian doing the attacking.

When they got back to the room where the Lady and the werewolves were waiting, the wolves growled at Zathrian, angry. "So here you are, spirit," said Zathrian.

Swiftrunner growled and stepped between Zathrian and the Lady. "She is the Lady of the Forest. You will address her with the respect she deserves!"

"You named yourself, spirit? And your pets?"

"They named me," said the Lady calmly. "And they named themselves. They follow me because I helped them find their minds, not because they are my 'pets', as you call them."

"That hasn't changed from who their ancestors were! Wild, savage, monsters!"

"See? He won't help us, Lady!" snarled Swiftrunner. "Let's just kill him. Maybe that will break the curse!"

"There does not need to be any more violence," said the Lady. "Surely you must have had enough revenge, Zathrian."

"There will never be enough vengeance to end my pain. This is justice!"

"Are you certain of that?" asked the Lady. "Or are you only keeping the curse going because as long as it lasts, you will stay alive?" Wow.

"No! That is not how it is!"

"Just how far are you willing to go, Zathrian?" asked Olivia.

"I did this for my people! For my children!"

"You did it for yourself!" snapped Olivia.

"Zathrian's death would not end the curse, but his life does rely on its existence," said the Lady, "and I believe that his death plays a part in its ending."

"I will never end the curse!"

"We must kill them all!" snapped Swiftrunner.

"See!" yelled Zathrian to Olivia. "They're betraying you! Help me get Witherfang's heart!"

Olivia glared at him. "No. Way. You are going to end this curse if I have to make you myself!"

"We're standing for what's right here," said Alistair stubbornly. "No matter what." Bethany gave him a smile.

"Then you die with them!" shouted Zathrian. He pulled out his staff and fired a bolt of magic at Olivia. Automatically, she cast a spell to make herself stronger, one of the arcane warrior spells. A second later, when the spell hit her and barely caused any damage, she fumbled slightly in surprise before shooting a fire spell back at Zathrian, who dodged.

After a few minutes of intense fighting, Zathrian fell to his knees, bleeding heavily. "I surrender!"

"Kill him!" snarled Swiftrunner. "Kill him now!"

"No Swiftrunner," said the Lady. "We aren't going to kill him. If we can't be merciful, how could we possibly expect him to be?" Olivia really liked the Lady.

"I cannot end the curse as you want, spirit," said Zathrian unhappily. "I am too old to learn mercy now."

"You get revenge, then they get revenge for your revenge, then you want revenge for their revenge for your revenge. Hasn't this cycle gone on long enough?" asked Olivia.

"Perhaps I have lived too long," admitted Zathrian. "My hatred has consumed me. What about you, though, spirit?" he asked, turning to the Lady. "The curse is keeping you alive, as well. Aren't you afraid of dying?"

"You made me, Zathrian. You gave me a mind and body. A life. Thanks to you I have experienced pain and love, hope and fear, all the amazing things that it means to be a person." Olivia didn't entirely agree with that- Zathrian might have made the Lady sentient, but it was she who chose what to become. "But more than anything," continued the Lady, "I want nothing more than it to end, now. We are begging you- show mercy." That was… sad. The Lady was an amazing creature, and very wise. It was honestly too bad that she was apparently suicidal.

"You shame me, spirit," said Zathrian. "I have lived far too long."

"Then you will end the curse?"

"Yes."

Swiftrunner sadly moved a little closer to the Lady, who held out a hand, almost touching him, before straightening and looking directly at Zathrian. The mage and spirit nodded to one another. Zathrian raised his staff and brought it down on the ground, falling dead in a burst of light. The Lady held up her hand in front of her face, watching as it began to dissolve into flakes of pollen that drifted on the air. The werewolves surrounding her moved closer, one of them holding out a hand comfortingly. There was a second burst of light, this one enveloping the Lady, and she vanished, the werewolves glowing brightly before transforming into golden-eyed human men and women. "It's… over." Swiftrunner looked at his human hands in amazement. "She's gone and… we're humans. I can barely believe it. I don't know what to think."

"What now?" Olivia asked him.

"We'll go find other humans, I suppose. Should be interesting. Thank you. We… will never forget what you did."

The former werewolves turned as one and ran off. Their group mannerisms still seemed like wolves'. Olivia sort of wondered how they would adjust to rejoining human society after so long a time as wolves in the forest.

Olivia and the others went back to the Dalish camp and told Lanaya, Zathrian's First, what had happened. She seemed sad about his fate, but did officially agree to uphold the Dalish's agreement with the Grey Wardens and help them end the Blight.

"So…" began Bethany. "What was up with that gem earlier?"

"It contained the spirit of an ancient elf from an order of warrior mages called Arcane Warriors who gave me some of his memories," explained Olivia.

"You aren't going to start acting… like him, are you?" Bethany asked suspiciously.

"I'm not possessed," Olivia assured her. "And I'm not going to suddenly get identity issues from it- the memories were too incomplete for that. I just know some more things than I did before."

"Huh." Bethany sat in silence, apparently thinking. "So, could you teach me this Arcane Warrior stuff?"

Olivia smiled. "Sure."

"Well, that was interesting," she commented to Zevran that night at camp. "There were so many strange things in that forest. And I found some really nice armor."

"Can you even fight in armor?"

"I can now. That gem thing," she explained. "It's an ancient style of elven armor, too, so it's what I'm used to."

"Er, I?"

"The memories the gem gave me. Sorry."

"You're quite sure you aren't possessed?" he asked carefully.

"Very. I promise. I'm still very definitely Olivia Amell."

"If you're sure." They sat for a while. Zevran looked pensive. "I've been wondering."

"Yeah?" asked Olivia, curious. "What about?"

"After the Blight. What happens to me? Am I free to go or are you going to keep me around?"

Olivia looked at him seriously. "After the Blight you get released from your oath. Whether you stay or leave will be entirely up to you."

"I.. huh." He didn't really seem to know how to react to that. "And if I decide I do want to stay?"

Olivia smiled. "If you do, I'd be happy to have you."

He looked intently at the fire, seeming lost in thought. "Maybe I will, then."


	13. Chapter 13

Ch. 13: In Which Dwarven Politics Get in the Way

When they finally reached Orzammar after weeks of tedious traveling across the entire continent from the Brecillian Forest, the first sign that something was wrong came at the gates, where the guards were loudly arguing with a small group of men that the city was closed and no, they didn't care who they were or who sent them, nobody was getting in to Orzammar.

Olivia walked up to them. "I know this must be really annoying to have even more people show up like this, but we really need to get into the city, too." One of the guards groaned. "We need to see your king."

"Well, that would be wonderful if there was a king," said the other guard, "but there isn't. The king died a few weeks ago and the Assembly hasn't been able to agree on a replacement."

Of course. Because, once again, nothing could be simple. Olivia noticed money changing hands behind her. Apparently the others had been betting on what would be wrong this time. Leliana seemed to have won. "We're Grey Wardens," said Olivia. The leader of the men who had been arguing with the guards made an angry noise. "Orzammar is obligated to help us during a Blight. Like this one."

The guard looked at her. "I suppose I should let you in, then."

The man the guards had been arguing with looked furious. "You're letting them in and not us? They're traitors! We're official messengers of King Loghain!"

"Oh, it's King now, is it," said Olivia irritably.

"You know what," said the guard, cutting in. "I don't care. The Wardens can go in, you annoying humans just go away."

The messenger looked sullen. Olivia smirked smugly at him as the guards opened the gate and allowed her party through.

"Now what?" asked Alistair.

"Now we find out whoever is currently in charge and go talk to them, I suppose," answered Olivia, starting through the antechamber that the gates opened into.

Orzammar was located in a vast cavern, lit and heated by magma, buildings and streets carved out of the rock along the sides. "Wow," said Olivia quietly.

Their attention was swiftly drawn away from the architecture by the two opposing groups of armored dwarves standing right inside the gates, shouting at one another.

"Prince Behlen should be king!"

"No, Lord Harrowmont should be king!"

"Prince Pince Behlen is King Endrion's son!"

"King Endrion liked Lord Harrowmont better!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

One of the dwarves drew a sword and stabbed one of the others, who collapsed, obviously dead. "Hey!" a guard ran over. "Break it up!" The two groups stalked off in separate directions. "Welcome to Orzammar," said the guard sarcastically to Olivia.

"And that is why you shouldn't carry weapons while talking politics," commented Zevran.

The violent argument at least gave them some idea of who to talk to. "So. Should we go see this Behlen person or this Harrowmont person?"

"Behlen," said Bethany after a moment.

Olivia looked back at her companions. "Did you just flip a coin to decide that?"

"No…" said Bethany unconvincingly.

"Right." Olivia decided to let the matter drop. "We should go to the palace."

On the way over to the palace, Morrigan stopped and stared wistfully at a mirror sitting on one of the merchant's stalls. "Morrigan?"

"It looks exactly like the one I used to have." She turned to look at Olivia. "When I was younger, one of the times I snuck out of the Wilds I saw a mirror just like that one in a lady's carriage- I took it. When I got back, Mother found the mirror and smashed it." She looked sad for a moment, before her expression hardened. "It made me stronger." She returned to walking toward the palace.

Olivia went over to the merchant. "How much for the mirror?"

They went to find Prince Behlen, who wasn't particularly helpful. "I can't do anything to help you unless I'm king. Of course, if the Grey Wardens were to complete a few tasks in my name…"

Olivia sighed. Typical. "What do you need?"

That was how they found themselves running around Orzammar, showing various neutral lords that they had been conned and dealing with Orzammar's organized crime problem.

"This isn't quite enough," said Behlen. Olivia, standing disheveled and lightly injured in bloody clothing, almost swore. "What I really need," he continued, "is the support of a Paragon. Nobody would be able to argue with that. Unfortunately, the only living Paragon, Brankha, left for the Deep Roads on a quest to find the Anvil of the Void, an artifact created by Paragon Carridin to make golems."

Olivia took the hint. She sighed. "How about if we go find Paragon Brankha for you?"

"Perfect! Here's a map of the Deep Roads showing her planned route," said Prince Behlen, holding out a large sheaf of parchment. Because of course he already had it on hand.

"Great," said Olivia, with much less enthusiasm, taking the map. "We'll go find Paragon Brankha."

At the entrance to the Deep Roads, they were accosted by a brilliantly redheaded dwarf who smelled strongly of alcohol. "You're going to find Paragon Brankha. I'm coming with you."

Olivia blinked. "Who are you?"

"Oghren. Brankha's my wife. I know her better than anyone. If you want to find her, you'll need me."

Olivia gave him a look. "If we refuse to let you come, you're going to just follow along behind us, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Okay."

Olivia kind of hated the Deep Roads. They were dark, smelly, and dirty and the parts of them that didn't have darkspawn were infested with giant spiders instead, and by 'giant spiders', she didn't just mean 'big', she meant 'larger than her dog'. The only redeeming characteristic of the Deep Roads was that she wasn't getting claustrophobic in them, mainly because their lights didn't light up enough area to actually see the walls. "I really hate this place," she commented after about a week of fighting their way through various caverns and chambers. "That seems like kind of a failing in a Grey Warden. Seriously, it's dark and rank and I'm pretty sure we've only gotten somewhere around five miles or so in a week because of all the darkspawn we've had to fight."

"Does anyone else hear a really creepy whispery voice?" asked Alistair nervously.

Everyone stopped and listened. There was, indeed, a creepy, whispery voice speaking. They slowed, walking more cautiously, to find a dwarven woman, face mottled with the Blight, kneeling and gibbering about women being transformed into something she referred to as a 'broodmother'. She didn't seem to really notice their presence. They slowly continued down the cave.

In a few minutes, they found out exactly what the woman had meant by 'broodmother'- a huge, gray tentacled creature. The ground beneath their feet shifted from stone squishy, disgusting flesh.

The broodmother shrieked and a tentacle erupted from the fleshy substance covering the ground, knocking Alistair backwards. "Get back!" Olivia grabbed Bethany's arm and pulled her backward off the flesh and onto the rock.

"How are we supposed to kill this thing?" asked Alistair, looking at what was now a waving mass of tentacles surrounding the rocks they had taken refuge on. "We won't be able to get close to it!"

"You keep watch in case any other darkspawn show up!" shouted Olivia. "We're going to have to snipe at it!"

"Well, I feel useless," muttered Alistair as Olivia, Bethany, Morrigan, and Wynn began firing spells at the broodmother, Leliana backing them up with arrows.

The short-range fighters did eventually get something to do, as a few darkspawn came out of the openings in the cavern to attack the party. The broodmother was hard to kill. Not only did arrows stuck in its thick flesh and spells did mostly superficial damage, it was difficult to aim due to the waving tentacles between them and the broodmother. Eventually, Leliana managed to get in a clear shot and send an arrow through one of the broodmother's eyes, killing it.

"Ugh. That was… horrible," she said, stepping over one of the now limp tentacles that had ceased waving and fallen to the… ground when the broodmother died.

"Agreed," said Olivia.

Up on one of the ledges above where the broodmother had sat, the dwarven woman from earlier appeared. She mumbled a garbled description of what had apparently happened to her in the same whispery voice as before, then turned and walked away, head bowed. From what Olivia could gather, the monster they had just fought had previously been one of the other dwarven women from the expedition, who Brankha had left behind to her fate along with the others that had been with them.

"I have a very bad feeling about Brankha's state of mind," muttered Olivia.

It was a few more days before they found the thaig that had been Brankha's destination. As they entered the area, a crudely-wrought metal gate slammed closed behind them. "That can't be good."

A heavily-armored dwarven woman appeared on a ledge above them. "Brankha!" Cried Oghren excitedly.

"Oh. Oghren. Figures you'd find your way here. Hopefully you can find your way back, as well." She seemed a bit put out to see him. "Let me be blunt with you. After all this time, I don't really care much about manners anymore. I hope that doesn't bother you. So, who are you?" she asked Olivia. "A hired sword of whoever wants to find me this time? Or the only one who didn't mind Oghren's drunken company."

"Be respectful!" snapped Oghren. "You're talking to a Grey Warden!" Personally, Olivia felt Oghren should be concerned about how Brankha was talking about him.

"Oh, an important mercenary, then. I suppose something serious has gone wrong. Is Endrion dead? That seems the most likely problem."

Olivia shrugged. "Yeah. And they can't decide on who to replace him, which is kind of a problem because there's a Blight going on and someone needs to be in charge."

Brankha looked disdainful. "A king won't defeat a Blight. Only the Anvil of the Void, our greatest invention, can help!" She continued on about how wonderful and amazing and completely necessary for dwarven existence the Anvil of the Void was, despite the fact that they had done just fine without it for years.

Now she was ranting. Lovely. "Uh, huh. Let me guess. You can't get at it."

"The Anvil lies on the other side of a gauntlet of traps designed by Carridin." Gauntlet instead of gantlet again. Olivia had given up on trying to correct people's vocabulary. "The Anvil is what we need!" she began ranting again. "If you want me to help you with your stupid election or even let you leave, you have to get me the Anvil."

Oghren looked horrified. "What has this place done to you? You aren't the woman I remember marrying!"

"I am your Paragon," said Brankha coldly, turning and walking away.

So now they were trapped in the Deep Roads by a crazy, obsessed woman on a power trip and the only way out was through a maze of traps. Hooray.

"I think I hate golems," announced Olivia, clutching her side as they left the room containing the final trap. "Not as much as Templars, but seriously, I'm pretty sure that thing cracked my ribs when it hit me."

"Let me see." Wynne came up to her and cast a healing spell.

"And now they're just bruised. It is a sad day when that is considered an improvement."

The doorway led them to a wide rock ledge in a vast cavern. On the highest point of the ledge, overlooking a river of magma, stood a gigantic grey anvil covered in faintly glowing blue veins of lyrium. The view was pretty dramatic, but Olivia would have liked it a lot more if she hadn't been tired and injured. And if the ledge hadn't contained several more golems.

The largest golem, one made of ornate metal, turned as they came closer. "So. You have found your way through my traps."

Olivia raised her eyebrow. "Your traps?"

"Yes. For I… am the Paragon Carridin."

That was unexpected. "What?"

The golem, Carridin, began to explain. Apparently, the way that the Anvil of the Void was used required sacrificing dwarves and using their spirits to animate the golems, which were then controlled by rods. At first, they had only used volunteers- which was bad enough, in Olivia's opinion- but had progressed to taking unwilling sacrifices from among the casteless. Because apparently the casteless were so far below the other dwarves that there was nothing wrong with killing them and forcibly enslaving their souls. Then, when Carridin had proven to be an actually decent person and objected to this, they had turned him into a golem, as well, though Carridin, having created the Anvil, was able to avoid being controlled by it, despite, as a golem, being unable to destroy it, and he took it away into the Deep Roads where no one would be able to get at it. This speech was followed up by a plea to Olivia to destroy the Anvil herself, since he could not.

Olivia stared at Carridin. "Why would you even build something like that in the first place?" she asked incredulously.

Carridin looked a bit shifty, or at least as shifty as a giant metal golem could look. "Will you help?"

"Well, yeah."

"NO!" Brankha ran up, flanked by more golems. "The Anvil of the Void is our greatest treasure! It will make Orzammar great again!"

"Sure, it's really great," said Olivia sarcastically. "If you ignore the fact that it's also kind of, well, completely evil. The Anvil has to go."

"No!" shouted Brankha again, pulling out her sword. "Attack!"

Olivia readied an ice spell as the golems that Brankha had brought with her moved to the offensive, the other mages in her party attacking as well, while the others, whose ordinary weapons didn't do much good against solid rock, swiftly got out of the way, engaging with Brankha herself. There were more golems than had attacked them before in the maze and Olivia was honestly worried until Carridin and his golems got involved in the fight, going toe to toe with Brankha's.

In the end, Brankha was dead and her golems were smashed to pieces. Oghren looked miserable. Nobody seemed to know what to say to him.

"Will you destroy the Anvil for me now?" asked Carridin hopefully.

Olivia nodded. "Wait- we still need a paragon to break the deadlock in the assembly and choose a king." With everything that had happened, she had almost forgotten about the original mission.

"I can do that," said Carridin. "It is the least I can do for you in return for your help. I'll forge a crown for whatever king you choose on the Anvil of the Void. That should be impressive enough to make everyone go along with it."

Well, that was something, at least. Nobody was going to be arguing with Carridin.

Olivia and the others sat on the ledge, fixing themselves up after the fight, while Carridin worked on the Anvil, hammering gold into shape to create what Olivia had to admit was a very nice-looking crown, which he handed to her as soon as the metal had cooled. Olivia resisted the urge to try it on, instead putting it in her backpack before walking up to the Anvil with the hammer Carridin had given her. "Are you sure this will work?" she asked, looking dubiously between the hammer and the Anvil. "Because it seems like the Anvil would have broken already if a single blow of a tiny hammer could destroy it."

"A single blow from this particular hammer can," said Carridin. "The hammer is magic too. I made it after I came here with the Anvil."

Olivia shrugged. Still a bit skeptical, she raised the hammer and brought it down on the Anvil. Light spread from where the hammer hit, causing a thousand cracks to appear in the Anvil, shattering it. It seemed that the hammer was magic after all. Cool. Olivia wondered if she could keep it. "Thank you," said Carridin. "Now I can safely rest."

"What?"

Carridin walked up to the edge of the ledge and stepped off into thin air, falling into the magma far below.

"Did he just kill himself? Why does it seem like everyone we meet ends up killing themselves? The Lady of the Forest and Zathrian, Carridin… When are we going to meet someone who doesn't want to die?" At least there was no one to stop her from keeping the cool magic hammer now.

The trip back to Orzammar was relatively uneventful. When they arrived, Behlen called a session of the assembly where Olivia dramatically announced what had happened in the Deep Roads and that Carridin had given them a crown to present to his chosen king- Behlen. As predicted, nobody seemed to want to disagree with Carridin.

The party, including Oghren, who decided to come along with them, left Orzammar after Behlen promised honor the treaty and send troops to help them stop the Blight. Olivia was extremely happy to be outside.

That night, in camp, Olivia remembered the mirror that she had bought back in Orzammar. Pulling it out of where it had migrated to the bottom of her backpack, she headed over to Morrigan. "I've got something for you."

"Oh?" Morrian raised her eyebrows and Olivia held out the mirror. "This is…" slowly, Morrigan took it. "The mirror we saw in Orzammar. It's exactly like the one Mother smashed." Morrigan held the mirror disbelievingly. "Thank you."

"That was kind," said Bethany, when Olivia had gotten back over to the fire.

"Speaking of gifts," said Zevran, sitting down next to Oliva. "I've got something you might like."

"What?" asked Olivia curiously.

He pulled a small gold object out of his pocket. "I got this on my very first mission. Okay, technically I stole it, but the owner wasn't alive to complain. It's not like the Crows actually paid me anyway, so that's really the only way I had to get money. I've kept it ever since. I'd like you to have it."

"You're giving me something that you've carried around with you for years just because?"

"I…" he stumbled over his words. "Just take it. Feel free to sell it or wear it or whatever you feel like. It means a lot to me but so have y… so has what you've done. You know, getting me away from the Crows and, yeah."

Olivia got the feeling that he had been about to say something else there. "Zevran," she said. "I'm not going to take your prized possession because you're grateful you aren't with the Crows anymore." She closed his hand over the earring. "If you ever have another reason- ask me again."

She got up, smiling faintly, and walked away from the fire.

Alistair looked sad. "I will never understand what she sees in him."

Bethany laid her head down on his shoulder. "Does it matter?"

Alistair looked much happier. "Nope."


	14. Chapter 14

Ch. 14: In Which The Party Arrives in Denerim

Olivia and the others headed back to Redcliffe, stopping off at the Circle on the way there to run a couple errands, something which led Oghren to running into his ex-girlfriend and getting back together with her while everyone was taking advantage of the fact that there was an actual inn with bedrooms and baths and everything to spend the night in.

When they got to Redcliffe, they met up with Arl Eamon and headed to Denerim. The moment they arrived at Arl Eamon's estate, they were met by a very angry looking Loghain, flanked by his lieutenant and a gray-haired man.

"Logahin," said Eamon, voice strained. "It's an honor for the regent to come meet me."

Loghain glared, which, admittedly, seemed to be his only expression. "How could I not come meet someone so important he called everyone in Ferelden to Denerim in the middle of a Blight?"

"That's why I'm here. Ferelden needs a king to lead it against the darkspawn."

"Ferelden has a perfectly fine, strong leader already, the Queen!" Olivia desperately wanted to point out that Anora couldn't be that strong a leader if she let her father take over and do everything for her. "And I lead her armies!"

Okay, that was going a bit too far. "And a bang-up job you've done of that so far," snarked Olivia.

"Who's this?" Loghain sounded disdainful. "A new stray you picked up along the road, Eamon?"

"I'm kind of offended you don't even remember me, considering that you sent an assassin to kill me," grumbled Olivia.

"Shut up!" snarled Loghain. "This is my city and you can't talk treason here!"

"Oh, let's not even go into treason."

"Anyway, Eamon, I heard that your illness had you laid up."

Eamon looked angry. "Illness? You had me poisoned! Not everyone is going go along with your schemes like your sycophants do."

"You have been away for a long time." Loghain gestured to the man. "Don't you recognize Arl Howe of Amaranthine, Teryn of Highever?"

"And current Arl of Denerim, after Arl Urien died at Ostegar," added Howe. "Don't forget that."

"Nice array of titles. Who did you have to kill for Loghain to get them?" asked Olivia. "Probably the Couslands- last I heard they were in charge of Highever and there's no way they all died at Ostegar, considering that one of them was a seven-year-old."

Ser Cauthrien glared at Olivia. "Don't interrupt, churl. Your betters are talking!" Churl? Who calls people that?

"Not now Cauthrien," said Loghain.

"Ooh, that was a stab in the dark but I bet he did kill the Couslands," said Olivia. "Is that why you don't want to talk about this?"

Loghain ignored her. "I had hoped I could talk you out of this, Eamon. You're weakening the country your own sister worked tirelessly for because of your selfish ambitions to the throne!" Eamon glared at him, arms crossed.

"Wow," said Olivia. "It's kind of a totally jerkish move to bring Queen Rowan into this, considering how you purposely got her son killed."

"I wasn't talking to you!" snapped Loghain.

Eamon continued to glare. "I can't forgive you for what you've done, Loghain. Ferelden deserves a Theirin king. Alistair will lead us against the darkspawn, not me."

"No pressure," muttered Alistair.

"The emperor of Orlais thought I couldn't beat him," Loghain told Eamon. "Don't expect to succeed where he failed. There is nothing I won't do for Ferelden." He turned and stormed out, followed by his two shadows.

"Well, I didn't expect him to show up so soon," said Eamon. "I think he's insane. Seriously, I would never have thought that he would turn against the king."

"I did," commented Morrigan. "Mother predicted that ages ago. I'm pretty sure she warned King Maric that Loghain would double-cross him."

Everyone stared at her. "How about we chalk that up to 'Flemeth knows everything' and forget we ever heard it?" said Olivia. They all nodded.

"Anyway," said Eamon. "We still need to gather more support if we're going to win the vote at the Landsmeet. There's some suspicious things going on that will probably be good to look into."

"Like what?" asked Olivia.

"There's some kind of mysterious plague in the elven alienage, for one thing. It could be an actual plague but, then again, my sickness wasn't, so…"

"Suspicious. Got it. We'll take a look."

They went to the alienage the next day. Despite the fact that there was supposedly a plague, there didn't seem to be too many sick people around. Of course, they could all be indoors, but…

In the center of the alienage, a large crowd of elves led by a young redheaded elven woman stood in front of a building, facing off with a man in Tevinter-style mage robes.

"Let us in there!" shouted the redhead.

The mage looked at her. "No. It's a quarantine. That means that people aren't supposed to go in."

The woman glared. "See, you say that it's a quarantine and you're healing the sick people in there, but if you're healing them, then why is it that no one's come out?"

"Quarantine also means that no one leaves."

"If they were healed, they wouldn't be contagious anymore and it would be perfectly safe for them to leave! Where is everyone? Where's my Uncle Cyrion, huh?"

"Now, madam…" The redhead clenched her fists. "Oh, look at the time," said the mage. "I really must be going!" He ducked into the building.

The redhead growled. "What's going on?" asked Olivia, walking up to her.

The redhead sighed. "There's a plague. Those Tevinter mages supposedly came here to help, set up a quarantine in that building, and everything, but everyone who goes to them for healing doesn't come back. We've already lost our leader- my uncle Cyrion, and a lot of other people. There's something shifty going on, but I don't know what and everyone's too afraid of the plague to actually help me find out."

"I could tell that something was wrong," said Olivia. "I'm actually here to investigate it. Olivia Amell," she added, holding out her hand.

"Shianni," said the redhead. "The best bet is to go check out the quarantine building. I haven't been able to get in. Tried to sneak in through the back, but there's a guard. Which is only more suspicious."

"I suppose that's our first move, then," said Olivia, beginning to head around the back of the quarantine building with the others. Shianni followed. "Um, why are you following us?"

"Seriously? You have to ask? I've finally found someone who'll help me find out what's going on here, I'm not going to sit back and let you do everything. I'm coming too."

"It's just that normally when people ask us for help they wander off and make us do everything."

"They sound kind of irresponsible, then," said Shianni. "And also lazy."

When they got around the back of the building, the guard at the door groaned, looking at Shianni. "Not you again! I've told you before, I'm being paid to not let anyone through this door, and that's what I'm going to do."

"How much?" The guard looked at Olivia. "How much are you being paid?"

"Five silvers an hour," he said proudly.

Olivia pulled out her purse. "I'll give you double that to take a short break."

"Okay!" he said happily. Olivia handed over the money and the guard wandered off, cheerfully counting out his shiny new ten silvers.

"Wish I'd had the money to bribe him," muttered Shianni. "Of course it's easy for you."

"Hey!" said Olivia. "I got that money by fencing stuff I found in the Deep Roads. It was incredibly difficult and took a lot of effort."

Shianni winced. "Ouch. Sorry."

The supposed quarantine building was empty. "This can't be good," muttered Olivia.

"Found something!" called Bethany. Everyone crowded around her. "It's an incredibly suspicious-sounding receipt with an address down the road written on it. And by incredibly suspicious, I really mean incredibly suspicious. Either these Tevinters are running some sort of live animal trade out of her or, well… it's a live people trade."

Everyone looked suitably horrified. Olivia took the paper from Bethany. "We should keep this as evidence. Let's go. If we're lucky the missing people will still be at this address."

They hurried out of the building and down the road. The building that the paper mentioned had a pair of guards standing outside it. Olivia cast an arcane warrior strengthening spell on herself as she strode up to them, drawing her sword and stabbing one while freezing the other with an ice spell before stabbing him as well. "Damn slavers," she muttered.

Shianni stared at the frozen guard. "She's a mage? I thought she was a warrior. What with, you know, the sword and armor and all…"

"An arcane warrior," said Leliana. "She found this gem in some ruins that had the spirit of someone who had been part of an ancient order of elven mages slash warriors trapped in it and the spirit made her its heir or something in return for freeing it and laying it to rest."

"Your lives are weird," said Shianni.

All told, they did manage to rescue the kidnapped elves and, as a bonus, found documentation proving that Loghain had allowed the slavers to come in return for a cut of their profits. Cyrion Tabris, the leader of the alienage and Shianni's uncle, thanked them and Shianni said goodbye at the gates of the alienage. They began to make their way back to Arl Eamon's estate in good spirits.

However, as they were walking through a back alley, they were suddenly surrounded by a large group of armed men.

"This can't be good," muttered Alistair.

A smirking dark-haired man appeared at the top of the steps they had been about to climb. Zevran swore.

"Ah, the mighty Grey Warden," said the stranger. "The Crows send their greetings once again."

Zevran glared at him. "So, Taliesan. Did they pick you for this job, or did you volunteer?"

"The latter of course. The great, wonderful Zevran gone rogue? I just had to see it in person."

"Well now you have, then."

"You can come back with me, Zevran," said the Crow, Taliesan. "It's not too late for us to come up with some kind of story to explain your behavior."

"See, I don't like that plan," commented Olivia. "For one thing, I'd have to be dead for it to work."

"Which isn't going to happen while I'm around," said Zevran.

"What?" Taliesan seemed honestly shocked.

Zevran turned to look at him. "Sorry, friend," he said sadly. "I'm going to have to refuse. I'm got coming back. And you should have stayed in Antiva. He drew his daggers and stabbed the nearest one of Taliesan's thugs in the throat.

Taliesan still seemed surprised when they killed him. Zevran looked conflicted. "And there it is. Taliesan is dead, and I am free of the Crows. They'll assume I died with him and as long as I don't do anything to get their attention they won't have any reason to think differently. They won't be looking for me anymore."

"Well, that's good, at least," said Olivia.

"Very good," agreed Zevran. "It's the exact sort of outcome I had hoped for. I suppose I could leave now, go somewhere so far away the Crows would never find out that I had even survived. I could also, however, stay here- after all, I did swear to help you. Also saving the world seems like a worthy task to see through to the end, yes?"

"So which will it be then?" asked Olivia.

"That's what I'm asking you- do you want me to stay or go?"

"Zevran," said Olivia, "I want you to do what you want to do. I can't make your choices for you."

He looked confused. "I don't know how to respond to that. Nobody's ever asked… I mean, normally it's other people who make these decisions… I guess I'll… stay? Is that good?"

"If that's what you want, then yes, it is good." Zevran smiled slightly. "I'm pretty happy with it too," Olivia added. "I mean, it would be kind of hard to kiss you if you were off somewhere far away hiding from the Crows."

Zevran laughed. "This is also true." He moved forward and kissed her.

"Oh, I am totally composing a ballad about this," muttered Leliana off to the side.


	15. Chapter 15

Ch. 15: In Which Olivia and Bethany Pull a Heist and Queen Anora is a horrible person

That night, Olivia looked around the guest room Arl Eamon had given her. "Oh, this is nice." She poked happily at the neatly-folded pile of her spare clothing. It was clean and smelled faintly of lavender.

"Want to know what else is nice?" asked Bethany, coming up behind her. "You can get a hot bath. I've missed that. Rivers just aren't the same."

Olivia turned around to find that Bethany did, indeed, have wet hair.

"That does sound amazing," she admitted. "I've got one more thing to do tonight before I can relax, though."

"What?" asked Bethany curiously. "Did Arl Eamon tell you about something else to investigate?"

Olivia shook her head. "No." She pulled out her spare armor, which was made of dark leather rather than shiny silver metal, and began to put it on.

"Well, what is it then?"

"Remember what Templars use to chase down escaped mages?"

"Phylacteries, yes."

"Well, the ones from the Ferelden Circle are kept here in Denerim, in the cellars beneath one of the Chantries. So," said Olivia, pulling on her second gauntlet and strapping a spare sword to her back. "I'm going to break in and get rid of mine."

"Isn't someone going to notice that?"

"No, because I'll switch it out for something that looks like a phylactery but isn't one. With luck, no one will ever even know someone got in."

"When are we ever lucky?"

"I scoped out the security earlier and it's completely lax. Also Zevran's covering for me, just in case." Olivia smirked. "Want to come?"

"That would probably be a good idea, yes." She sighed. "Mother is going to say that you're leading me to a life of crime."

"You're an apostate, you're living a life of crime just by existing." Bethany laughed.

Followed by Bethany, Olivia headed down to the kitchens. "Hey," she said casually to the cook.

"What are you doing here?" the elven woman asked irritably.

"Do you have any animal blood I could have?"

The cook stared at her. "…why?"

"I need to do a thing."

The cook looked suspicious. "You're a mage. Is this a blood magic thing?"

"No!" said Olivia quickly. "It's a practical joke thing."

The cook still looked skeptical. "We've got some from the meat we get."

"I only need enough to fill up your standard Templar phylactery bottle."

"I fail to see how that could be a practical joke."

"I'll be laughing."

"You aren't planning on doing any horrible things that will make the Templars likely to fall for this joke, are you?"

"No, but you never know when they'll turn on you. Besides, if I do this I'll be able to quit the Wardens and go get a life after the Blight without anyone hunting me down and making me come back."

The cook rolled her eyes. "You know what? Fine. I don't even believe in you humans' stupid Maker and Chantry, anyway. I'm really more of a Mythal person." She went over to the icebox and pulled out a jar of blood. "Here. Don't tell anyone I was involved."

"Thank you!" Olivia took the jar and stuck it in her backpack, skipping off down the corridor.

Olivia let herself and Bethany into the Chantry, both of them pulling hoods up to cover their faces as they entered. "This way," she whispered, creeping along to a small door at the back of the room, which she opened to reveal a staircase downward.

At the bottom of the stairs, there was a doorway. Bethany tried the doorknob. "It's locked. But I don't see a keyhole."

Olivia looked more closely at the door. "This seems familiar." She looked intently at the door. "Sword of the Maker, tears of the Fade." The lock clicked and Olivia hurriedly cast an ice spell on it. The door opened.

"How did you know that?" asked Bethany, astounded.

"I guessed. That's the same password to open the door to where the phylacteries are held in the Tower." They walked through the door. As Olivia had suspected, there was a second door just beyond it. She pulled out her lockpicks and opened the door after a little fumbling around with the lock. "I never would have expected my previous experience breaking into phylactery chambers would come in handy."

The room beyond was filled with lines of shelves holding bottles of blood. Olivia found the A's and began scanning the shelf until she saw Amell, Olivia. She walked quickly over to the bottle and picked it up.

Olivia opened her backpack and pulled out an empty flask, as well as the jar full of animal blood that she had gotten from Arl Eamon's cook. She carefully used a knife to loosen the wax seal on the phylactery without damaging it and opened the bottle, pouring the blood inside into the empty flask that she had brought with her before taking a rag and carefully cleaning the remainder of her blood out of the bottle. Olivia opened the jar of animal blood and poured it into the now clean and empty phylactery bottle, putting the lid back on and carefully sticking the seal back down without damaging it. Olivia put away the rest of her materials and returned the bottle to the shelf, looking at it carefully. It looked exactly the same as it had before her tampering. She turned to Bethany. "Let's go."

The two women left the phylactery chamber, the two doors locking themselves behind them. Olivia and Bethany hurried back to Arl Eamon's estate and snuck in through the back, going up to Olivia's room, where they quickly took off the clothes they had been wearing for the break-in. "Now I think I'm ready for that bath," said Olivia.

The next morning after breakfast, everyone gathered in Arl Eamon's study to plan their next move. Before they could really discuss anything, however, a distraught elven woman with a thick Orlesian accent ran into the room. "You have to help me!"

"Um, who are you?"

"Queen Anora's maid. My mistress's father has locked her up in the Arl of Denerim's estate and I fear for her life!"

"Oh this is perfect! Now Anora will be on our side!" exclaimed Arl Eamon. "Er, I mean, poor Anora, you must rescue her!"

Olivia sighed. "Okay, let's go."

The maid snuck them into the Arl's estate disguised as guards and led them to the room where Anora was imprisoned. There was a disturbing shimmering bluish barrier over the door. "That can't be good," said Olivia.

"Who's there?" called a voice from inside the room.

"It's me, your majesty," said the maid. "I've brought the Grey Wardens to rescue you."

"That would be very nice, but there appears to be a bit of a complication. As you can probably see, the door has been blocked by magic. You'll need to kill the mage to get through, and he's probably with Arl Howe- they like to hang out in the dungeons."

"Right," said Olivia. "We'll be back later."

The maid stayed behind while the rest of them found their way into the dungeons- through Arl Howe's bedchamber. "He has an entrance to the dungeons in his room? That's disturbing," said Olivia.

"Look what I found." Leliana held up a sheaf of papers. "These have the Grey Warden seal on them. I wonder how Howe got them?"

When they entered the dungeons, the guard jumped, moving toward them. "Who are…" his words ended in a gurgle as a hand shot out from the cell he had just passed, jerking him toward the bars and twisting viciously before grabbing the key from off the guard.

A man exited the cell. "Hey!" exclaimed Alistair. "I know you! You're a Grey Warden! Riordan, right?"

The man nodded. "The Wardens in Orlais sent me and several others to help, but when we arrived in Denerim Arl Howe's men attacked us- I was locked up in here and the other Wardens were killed."

"I suppose these are yours, then," said Leliana, holding up the papers she had found.

"Oh, yes, thank you," said Riordan, taking them. "I should probably go escape the rest of the way, now."

"Go to Arl Eamon's estate," said Alistair. "That's where we're staying." Riordan nodded and left back the way they had come. Olivia spared a moment to wonder whether or not the mostly naked Warden was going to steal some of Arl Howe's clothes. Probably.

Riordan was not the only prisoner that they found while wandering around the dungeons. There was a young nobleman on the rack in the torture chamber, Templar locked up in one of the cells who, based on his feverish lyrium withdrawal ravings, had apparently had been captured and imprisoned while attempting to capture Jowan, and an elven man who had apparently been there ever since before Arl Urien died. They let everyone out, the nobleman swearing to tell his family about what had happened and convince them not to support Loghain- something that Olivia suspected wouldn't be very difficult- and the elf hurrying back home- he seemed very relieved when Olivia mentioned that Shianni was alright. The Templar was too incoherent to go anywhere, and the most they could do was leave the cell door open and agree to bring his ring to his sister- Leliana took it and promised to make sure that she got it and tell her where he was so she could go get him. The Templar didn't seem to really process much of that.

They found the mage in an empty room with Arl Howe and a few soldiers, all of whom they had to kill. Arl Howe died gasping. "I deserved better." That attitude probably had a lot to do with what a horrible person he was.

Once the mage, and, coincidentally, the Arl, was dead, they were able to go let Anora out of the room she had been locked in. "What took you so long?" the queen asked. Olivia rolled her eyes.

They had made it almost the entire way out of the estate when they were suddenly surrounded by a very large group of soldiers- at least a score of them- led by Ser Cauthrien. "Warden! I am arresting you for murdering Rendon Howe and all his guards. Surrender, and they might not kill you."

"I was just rescuing Queen Anora!" said Olivia, pointing to her. "She was a prisoner here."

Ser Cauthrien looked confused. "Your Majesty?"

"She wasn't, I was fine," said Anora quickly.

"Well, I'm not rescuing you again," said Olivia as Ser Cauthrien pointed her sword at her.

Only Olivia and Alistair got arrested. Everyone else was left to angrily escort Anora back to Arl Eamon's estate with them while the two Wardens were taken to Fort Drakon.


	16. Chapter 16

Ch. 16: In Which Olivia Discovers a Phobia and there is a Landsmeet

At Fort Drakon, they took all of Olivia and Alistair's things- including the majority of their clothes- and dumped them in a chest while the two Wardens were thrown in a metal cage against the wall of a large empty room.

After the door of the cage had slammed shut and the soldiers who had put them in left, only a single guard remaining, Olivia began to feel anxious. All right, she admitted that was probably pretty normal in people who had just been arrested and locked up in a prison famed for never having had any escapes. As time wore on, however, the tiny seed of fear in Olivia's chest began to get bigger. Her vision swam. She felt like she couldn't breathe. Distantly, she could hear Alistair talking, sounding concerned, but she couldn't make out what he was saying.

It was snowing in the cage. Alistair's far-away voice sounded alarmed. The floor was frosting over, but the bars of the cage didn't seem affected. Olivia grabbed at them with her hands. She. needed. OUT. She felt a rush of inhuman strength. Somewhere it registered that she had just cast one of the arcane warrior spells. With a sudden wrench at the bars, she ripped the door of the cage clean off its hinges. It dropped to the frozen floor with a clang.

Olivia didn't actually remember much after that, just flashes of memory. Guards running and attacking or running and screaming, Alistair following along behind her looking frightened but not bothering to do any of the multitude of things he could do to stop her.

When she was next lucid, she found herself back in Arl Eamon's estate, Zevran sitting next to her and a thick woolen blanket over her shoulders while the rest of her companions stood around looking concerned. "What happened?" she mumbled, burrowing closer into Zevran's side. Her head hurt a lot.

"You had some kind of panic attack," said Alistair. "I was kind of scared for a while there. It's not like you were acting possessed or anything, but you were really, really focused on getting out of Fort Drakon. I don't think you heard anything I said and you just plowed through any of the guards who attacked you- threw them around with your bare hands. Then we met up with Zevran, Bethany, and Morrigan in the entry hall and you just sort of… collapsed on them."

Olivia shuddered. "Maker. I… I used magic in that state? Alistair, why didn't you stop me?"

"Well, it's not like you actually killed anyone," Alistair said reasonably. "Except for the inadvertent blizzard, which didn't do anything except snow on us, the only spells you seemed capable of thinking to cast in that state were the arcane warrior ones. I think you broke a few bones punching people, but only guards who were trying to stop us. As rampages go, it was pretty much the tamest one ever. No permanent harm done. Also, the authorities are so embarrassed about completely overlooking the fact that it was a mage they'd locked up and not taking precautions that they would rather just pretend it never happened, so we aren't going to get arrested again. They can't even set the Templars on you, because they don't realize you were using magic when you were actually attacking anyone- they just assumed that adrenalin was making you stronger. It's kind of hilarious."

Olivia spent the next day in bed, recovering mana and being treated for shock, despite the fact that by mid-afternoon, she was feeling much better and beginning to get bored with lying around, a fact which she loudly proclaimed to Zevran.

"You're still not allowed to leave bed," he told her. "I have no sway with the fair Wynne."

Olivia sighed. "So…" she said after a moment. "If I'm not allowed to get out of bed, does that mean you aren't allowed to join me?"

Zevran looked a bit uncomfortable. "No, but I… don't think that would be a good idea."

"Damn. This is because I'm laid up after creaming half of Denerim's guards and breaking out of Fort Drakon in the throes of a panic attack, isn't it."

He smiled. "Well, yes. But also…" Zevran went silent. "I'm an assassin."

"Yes, I noticed," pointed out Olivia dryly.

"It's just… assassins have to learn to forget about sentiment, take your pleasures where you can, when you can because expecting more is reckless and… I had thought that that's what was between us, but…"

"But it became more. Yeah." Said Olivia quietly.

"I don't know. I mean, how do you recognize something like that? I grew up with people who sold the illusion of love but taught me to make my heart cold for the kill. Everything I grew up knowing says that how I'm feeling is wrong, but I can't help it. For a while now I've just been… confused. Do you understand that?"

"Yes," said Olivia. "In the Circle… getting attached is… not something that ever ends well. Recently I've come to realize that I'm not in the Circle anymore and… maybe it can. But that's not something I would have ever expected."

Zevran nodded. "I need to know if there could be some sort of future for us, the possibility of… I don't know what, exactly."

"I hope so," said Olivia. "And I know that as long as we survive I'm going to do whatever I can to make sure that hope comes true."

Zevran smiled. "I… still have the earring. I'd like to give it to you. As a… token of affection. Will you take it?"

Olivia raised her eyebrows. "Are you proposing to me?"

"If that's what you want, definitely."

"Of course I'll take it."

Zevran smiled again, handing Olivia the earring. "Sorry for acting so strangely. I think I'll be better now. A lot better."

Olivia smirked. "I'm wearing Grey Warden colors at the wedding."

Zevran laughed. "We can have a cake shaped like a griffon."

"Wynne would like that. She's pretty fond of griffons."

Bethany and Alistair wandered in. Bethany snickered. "What?" asked Olivia.

"Nothing. Just… weddings." She dissolved into giggles. Alistair looked pretty amused, too. Olivia got the feeling that she was missing some kind of inside joke.

They had a few more days, which were spent running around doing errands- by which Olivia mean checking up on the people rescued from Howe's dungeon, talking to various people, and gathering allies. They also ended up having to kill Leliana's former girlfriend. It turned out that Leliana had been a spy. Well, at least that explained where she had learned to fight.

Then there was the Landsmeet.

Just outside the Landsmeet chamber, they were accosted by Ser Cauthrien, blocking the doorway holding her unsheathed sword. "I should have known it would come to this, Warden," said Cauthrien bitterly. "And you," she added, pointing at Alistair. "If you were even remotely worthy of being called Maric's son, you would already be in the Landsmeet, now wouldn't you." Now she was going to yell at them. Still, Olivia was kind of impressed. Cauthrien was more loyal to Loghain than his own daughter was. A spare thought that maybe Cauthrien was his daughter- she certainly looked more like him than Anora did- flashed through Olivia's mind. She dismissed it. Probably not. That sounded really far-fetched, even in her head. "You have torn this nation apart opposing the man who ensured you were born into freedom."

Olivia glared. She wanted to talk freedom? "Loghain ensured I was born into freedom? The only freedom I ever got born into was what my parents gave me by spending their lives on the run! They died for it! The only thing your Loghain ever did for me was sending Zevran and that was a murder attempt that went wrong! Don't talk to me about being born into freedom!"

Ser Cauthrien looked a bit taken aback at Olivia's explosion. She apparently hadn't realized that this was a sore point. "Er, well, anyway, I can't let you desecrate the Landsmeet like this," said Cauthrien. "The nobles will confirm Loghain as regent and we'll put all of this behind us. Once you troublemakers are gone."

"Oh, come on," said Oliviaa. "Can't you see how insane Loghain is?"

"I admit that…" Cauthrien looked uncertain. "He has been acting out of character of late. I didn't want to see…" Cauthrien knelt, sword pointing down on the ground. "Stop him. Before he does something that he would never have wanted were he in his right mind." Wow. Olivia… hadn't expected that.

They walked past the devastated Ser Cauthrien into the Landsmeet chamber, where Arl Eamon was standing in one of the raised galleries looking down on the room, giving a speech about how Loghain was ruining Ferelden and they shouldn't go along with him just because they were afraid of the Blight, only more eloquently. The gathered nobles seemed impressed, clapping uproariously.

"Nice speech," said Loghain, from where he was standing on the floor, doing a slow, sarcastic clap. "But you aren't fooling anyone. Everyone here can tell that you're putting an Orlesian puppet on the throne." The Olesians again? Olivia was getting tired of Loghain's paranoid delusions.

Olivia crossed her arms. "You're seriously going on about Orlais when the Blight is about to destroy us? The darkspawn are the real problem here."

"She's got that right," said one of the nobles up in the gallery. "I've seen the refugees to prove it."

"The south is overrun!" Exclaimed a second noble. "Are you going to ignore the darkspawn just because you're afraid of Orlais?"

"But how will the Wardens fight the darkspawn? They planned to bring four legions from Orlais. Once we let them in, do we really expect them to just go home afterward?"

"Says the man who let Rendon Howe imprison and torture innocent Ferelden citizens." Said Olivia.

"Including my son!" shouted the father of the young nobleman they had rescued. "He was kidnapped in the middle of the night and now he's permanently disabled!"

"Howe was responsible for his own actions," said Loghain. "And the Maker will judge him for them. Seeing as you killed him in his own home rather than bringing the matter up with the seneschal."

"If we're talking about killing men in their own homes, maybe we should also mention how you sent a blood mage to poison Arl Eamon," Olivia shot back.

"Oh, please. If I wanted to kill someone, I would have sent my own men, not an apostate."

"Oh?" said the sister of the Templar they had found in Howe's dungeon. "According to my brother you imprisoned Templars and rescued an apostate from them. That doesn't sound like a coincidence to me."

A Chantry Mother up in the gallery looked very angry. "What?! You won't get away with that, count on it!"

"I will answer for any criminal activity later," said Loghain. "At the moment, I would like to know what the Warden has done with my daughter." Loghain turned to glare at Olivia. "You took my daughter- the queen- and killed her guards. Where is she? Did you kill her?"

"I believe," called Anora from the doorway, "that I can answer that." She came forward and began speaking to defend her father. Lovely.

"Funny," said Olivia. "Didn't he try to kill you?"

"Did he? Are you sure of that?" asked Anora, smirking slightly. That was a set-up. Of course. "I know my father. He'll do anything for this country. But I needed to know your mind, Warden. You could have proven to be an ally of Ferelden. It is too bad you didn't."

"Who says Anora can't rule this land?" asked Loghain. "Who says Alistair can? We know absolutely nothing about him. Anora has been queen for five years. She can lead us through this."

Logain followed that with a dramatic speech about how Ferelden could defeat the Blight. It didn't seem to work because literally all but one of the nobles voted to stand with the Wardens. Loghain and his men reached for their weapons. "Traitors!" Loghain went on a crazed rant about how Arl Eamon had gone soft, none of the people here had fought for Ferelden and they all deserved whatever they got. His men began to fill the chamber.

"Seriously?" asked Olivia. "How about we settle this honorably. Instead of with, you know, a military coup."

"Then let us end this," said Loghain. "I suppose we both knew it would come to this. When we first met at Ostegar, I never would have thought so, but Ostegar seems like it happened in another lifetime, to someone else." Well, he had that right, at least. "A man is made by the quality of his enemies. Maric told me that once. I wonder if that is more a compliment to you or I?" He sighed.

The Bann of Waking Sea stepped forward and laid out the terms of the duel- single combat until someone surrendered and everyone would go along with whoever won.

"Will you face me yourself or will you have a champion?" asked Loghain.

"I'll fight myself," said Olivia.

Loghain nodded. "It is you or me the men will follow. So let us fight for it. Prepare yourself."

Olivia and Loghain faced one another, drawing their swords, circling. Olivia cast an arcane warrior spell to strengthen herself and flung an ice spell at Loghain as he charged, slowing him down and giving her time to get out of the way of what would have been an overpowering attack. Their swords met and in several moves she had disarmed him, sending his weapon skidding across the floor.

Loghain knelt. "Enough. I underestimated you, Warden. I thought you were an immature fool like Cailan, wanting to play at war. I was wrong. There is strength in you I have not seen since Maric died. I yield."

This man was a complete nutcase, but Olivia had to admit, she almost respected him. Well, the him from before he went crazy, at least. "You know that you'll have to die for everything you've done."

"Wait!" Riordan, the Orlesian Grey Warden, strode up. Olivia wondered when he had gotten there. "There is another option. He could go through the Joining and become a Grey Warden. There are some pretty compelling reasons for having as many of those around as possible when the archdemon is slain."

"What?" exclaimed Alistair. "Absolutely not!"

"Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with Alistair, here," said Olivia.

"No!" Wailed Anora. "You can't do this! My father may have been wrong, but he's still a hero!"

Loghain looked at her. "Anora. It's over."

"Stop treating me like a little kid! You're about to die!"

"Children never grow up in their parent's eyes, Anora.." He looked at Olivia. "Just make it quick, Warden. I can face the Maker, knowing Ferelden is in your hands."

Olivia nodded and raised her sword, bringing it down upon Loghain's neck. Anora looked too horrified to even react.

"So it is decided," said Arl Eamon. "Alistair will take his father's throne."

"Wait, what?" asked Alistair. "No it's not! We never decided that! When was that decided?"

"Months ago, when you agreed to go along with this?" suggested Olivia.

"Ha!" said Anora. "You all heard that. Obviously, he's abdicating in my favor."

"I really don't think I should be the one to decide this," said Arl Eamon. "You pick, Warden."

Now everyone was looking at Olivia. She sighed. "Alistair, can I talk to you for a moment, first?" She pulled him aside quickly. "I know you're reluctant to do the whole becoming king thing, so I'm going to ask you right now: what do you want me to choose?"

Alistair looked determined. "Make me king. Anora can't be trusted."

"You realize that this is going to effectively end your relationship with Bethany, right?"

"No it won't. We eloped last week."

All right, Olivia had noticed that they were sappily in love with each other, but she had not expected that. "…What?"

Alistair shrugged. "Well, it's not like anyone can do anything about it now. Which was the point."

Olivia barely restrained herself from pinching the bridge of her nose. Maybe she should have expected this, after all. Maker, Bethany had always been a lot like Aunt Leandra. It figured that she would elope too. "Okay. But I'm leaving it to you to explain to people." Olivia turned to look at the gathered nobles.

"Well?" Asked Arl Eamon. "Who'd you pick."

"Alistair will become the king," said Olivia. "And Bethany will be the Queen."

Eamon sighed. "I realize they're in a relationship, but I don't think people will go for…"

"Apparently they're married. You can't just un-marry people, so everyone'll just have to live with it. At least we're technically still nobility in Kirkwall," she added in an attempt to make him feel better.

Eamon didn't look happy, but everyone else just looked mostly uninterested. Eamon gave up and sighed. "Anyway, Anora, you lost the vote. Swear fealty to the king and give up all claims to the throne for yourself and your heirs."

"You think I'm going to swear that?" asked Anora. "Do you even know me?

Eamon groaned. "We can't continue in a state of civil war. If she won't do that then she's a threat to all of us."

"What do you want me to do?" asked Alistair. "Ugh. I guess we can lock her up for now. Maybe find somewhere to send her. Later."

Anora looked guilty. "You aren't going to kill me? I was going to kill you. Now I feel like a horrible person."

"Very well then," said Eamon, seeming relieved that something had been decided. He called the guards, who came forward and escorted Anora away. "So," prompted Eamon to Alistair, "Do you have anything to say to the Landsmeet, Your Highness?"

"Oh… yeah," said Alistair after a moment. "Right… um…" he began an awkward speech.

"Just skip to the part about the Blight already," hissed Olivia behind him.

Alistair's expression hardened. "Everyone! Get ready to fight! It's going to take all of us to survive this Blight." He seemed much more comfortable focusing on the darkspawn problem. "But we will defeat it!" Pretty much everyone cheered. Huh. When Alistair wasn't being self-conscious and nervous, he was actually a pretty good public speaker.


	17. Chapter 17

Ch. 17: In Which Everyone Goes To the Wrong City, But Arrive in the Right One on Time Anyway

They left for Redcliffe, where the armies were gathering. When they arrived, however, it was to news that the darkspawn horde had changed direction and was heading for Denerim instead. And that the Archdemon was with it now. Of course. The horde would arrive at the capital in two days.

There was no choice but to turn around immediately and take as much of the army as had arrived at Redcliffe to Denerim as quickly as possible, leaving in the morning, the soonest everyone could get ready.

"Great." Said Olivia. "The big question is how exactly are we supposed to defeat the Archdemon, anyways?"

Riordan looked…. Absolutely horrified was the only description Olivia had for it. "You don't know? Of course you wouldn't, you're both new recruits, Duncan wouldn't have expected that…" he trailed of muttering.

Arl Eamon gave Riordan a look and announced that he would go give everyone the marching orders.

"Perhaps you and Alistair should meet me before you go to bed," said Riordan to Olivia. "There are… things… that I need to tell you." He looked extremely unhappy.

Olivia and Alistair met up with Riordan in his room. "Oh, you're here," he said. "Good." Riordan still looked pretty miserable. "Please understand- I assumed that you had already known. Otherwise I would have told you as soon as you freed me in Denerim or at least before Loghain died. I am so, so sorry." All right. That was ominous. There was no way that whatever he was going to tell them would be a good thing.

"Told us what?" asked Alistair, irritated. "What are you apologizing for?"

"Have you ever wondered why the Grey Wardens are the only ones who can defeat the darkspawn?"

This was really, really going to be bad, wasn't it? "I have a feeling we're about to find out."

"The Archdemon can be killed just like any other darkspawn, but if anyone other than a Grey Warden does it, it won't be enough. Its spirit will just jump into the body of the nearest darkspawn and be reborn. The dragon practically immortal. The thing is, though, that this works by the Archdemon's spirit going into the nearest creature with the taint. So if it's killed by a Grey Warden, the spirit goes into the Warden instead of a darkspawn."

"That… doesn't sound very healthy for the Warden," said Olivia. "Or the Archdemon, but I don't actually care about its health."

"A darkspawn," explained Riordan, "doesn't have a soul, meaning that there's room for the Archdemon, but a Grey Warden does. When the Archdemon tries to possess a warden, the two souls mutually destruct- meaning that the Archdemon's essence is destroyed… but so is the soul of the Grey Warden."

"Meaning…the Grey Warden who kills the Archdemon… dies? And their soul gets destroyed?" Alistair looked stunned.

"And without the Archdemon the Blight ends," said Riordan as if that made everything fine. "It is the only way."

"So it's up to just us three to kill the Archdemon. And have their soul obliterated." said Olivia.

"In previous Blights, the Grey Wardens closest to being killed by the Taint would decide beforehand which of them would kill the Archdemon," said Riordan. "If we're lucky, it should be me who does. I am the oldest of the three of us and the Taint I closer to killing me than either of you. But if I fail, one of you must do so instead."

"Me, then," said Olivia.

Alistair looked suspicious. "Is this because I'm king?"

"No. It's because I don't want Bethany to become a widow within a fortnight of being married. And also because you're king. But mainly because Bethany would kill me."

Alistair and Olivia bade Riordan good night and headed to their rooms. When Olivia entered hers, however, it wasn't empty. "Morrigan?" Olivia asked, surprised. She frowned. "Are you all right?"

"I am perfectly well. You're the one in danger. Luckily, I have a plan," said Morrigan. "A way out. I know what happens when the Archdemon dies," Morrigan continued, turning from where she was gazing into the fireplace and walking toward Olivia. "I know a Grey Warden must be sacrificed, and that sacrifice could be you. I have come to tell you that does not need to be."

Olivia felt like she was getting mental whiplash. "How?"

"A ritual. Performed in the dead of night on the eve of battle."

"What kind of ritual?" Olivia asked suspiciously.

"Old magic. From a time before the Circle of Magi existed. Some people would call it Blood Magic, but that isn't strictly accurate."

Okay, not exactly Blood Magic. Olivia'd take it. "Tell me more."

"What I propose is this. Convince Alistair to lay with me. Here. Tonight. And from this ritual a child shall be conceived within me. The child will bear the Taint and when the Archdemon is slain its essence will seek it out like a beacon. At this early stage, the child will absorb the essence and not perish. The Archdemon will still be destroyed, with no Grey Warden dying in the process."

"And the child becomes… what?"

"Something different. Born with the soul of an Old God. After this is done, you allow me to walk away… and you do not follow. Ever. The child will be mine to raise as I wish."

"Wait-" said Olivia, thinking. "You have a spell that allows Grey Wardens to have children?"

"It does more than that."

"But it also allows Grey Wardens to have children. Who would be completely normal as long as there wasn't an Archdemon killed within a few days of their conception."

"Yes."

"I'll convince Alistair to sleep with you, but I want to learn that spell."

"…Why?

"I want options, okay? People keep taking them away from me!"

"…okay."

Olivia ended up convincing Alistair by talking to Bethany first and both of them going to talk him into having sex with Morrigan. It was probably one of the strangest conversations Olivia had taken part in, which was saying something. The next morning, the armies set out for Denerim.

They arrived in Denerim two days later to find that the darkspawn had already reached the city. As they prepared to engage the darkspawn, Alistair gave a really nice speech to get everyone excited. Or at least less terrified. He really was getting better at public speaking. The speech gave Olivia most of the credit for getting everyone to this point, too. It was technically true, but Olivia still found herself being surprised. The speech also mentioned avenging King Cailan, Alistair specifically referring to him as his brother. Olivia suspected that Arl Eamon had had a hand in writing it.

They managed to retake the gates of the city, but they were still vastly outnumbered. Things looked bad. Which was why Riordan came up with the idea of sending a strike team of Grey Wardens sneaking around the main horde through the city to kill the Archdemon, with the thought that once it was dead the rest of the horde would lose coherency and scatter. The idea was to get to the top of Fort Drakon and draw the dragon's attention, killing the darkspawn generals in the city on the way there so they wouldn't have to deal with them at the same time as the Archdemon. It was a pretty solid plan, or at least as solid as they were going to get. There were still lots of things that could go wrong. At least there was the possibility of calling backup while in the city, as a few units of their allies had managed to make it inside.

As a smaller team would be better, Olivia ended up splitting the party in half, leaving Leliana, Wynne, and Oghren- and also the dog- behind to lead the forces keeping more darkspawn from entering the city behind them through the gates and taking Morrigan, Zevran, and Bethany along with herself and Alistair.

"So, this is it, then," said Wynne. "Whatever happens now- to either of us, know that I am proud, infinitely proud, to have called you friend. Also, in case you die- I promise not to mention to anyone about Bethany, er, taking after her father. It's not like anyone will notice she's more than just a fighter now that she's learned all that Arcane Warrior stuff from you."

Olivia smiled. "Thanks, Wynne. I guess you aren't completely brainwashed, after all."

Wynne smiled back. "Farewell, and may the Maker watch over you."

"So this is it," said Oghren.

"Yep. This is it."

"I owe you. You took in a drunken disgrace of an Orzammar warrior. You gave me a reason to fight and the will to keep going. You helped me find the one woman in the world who would put up with me and helped me get over Brankha so I could move on. Let the Stone turn red from the blood of heroes. Today I will be the warrior you taught me to be." He announced dramatically, then nodded and walked over to join Wynne.

"So this is it," said Leliana. "This is the end. It's kind of strange to realize that all our fates will be decided in a few hours. I wish I could come with you. I respect your decision to leave me here, though I would have stood by your side even to the death."

Olivia smiled. "I know."

"You have been a true friend… and I would be extremely cross with you if you… don't return. Be careful out there. See you soon."

Olivia almost laughed. "Watch out for Dusty while I'm gone, yeah?"

"Of course."

"So, we head into the city together. As it should be," said Morrigan. Once this is done, no matter how it turns out, I will be gone. You know this, yes?

"I know," said Olivia. "I'll miss you."

Morrigan sighed. "Allow me to say one thing before we go. I knew nothing of friendship before we met, and I will always consider you such. Live well, my friend. Live gloriously. Now let us see this finally done. The Archdemon awaits."

"You know," said Bethany. "This is pretty much the last thing I could ever have expected to happen to me. But here we are."

"Here we are," Olivia agreed. "Maker, Aunt Leandra is going to kill me. Somehow, I suspect that taking you to fight the Archdemon is not what she had in mind when she said I should bring you with me."

"No way I'm staying behind, though," said Bethany.

"So, we head into the city to face the Archdemon together, do we? Just as it should be," said Zevran. "Allow me to say that it has been a pleasure. Attempting to assassinate you was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me."

"And to me," said Olivia quietly.

"By your side I would storm the gates of the Dark City itself. Never doubt that.

"So, before we head off to fight the Archdemon, I want to say something," said Alistair. "I know Morrigan's… what she did is supposed to save us. But just in case it doesn't do what she says, or we don't live long enough to even take that final blow, I want you to know that it's been an honor fighting by your side."

"Same here," said Olivia. "You've been a good friend. And cousin-in-law. I'm going to be very put-out with you if you die."

Alistair smiled. "Let's find this Archdemon, then, and kick it's ass."


	18. Chapter 18

Ch. 18: In Which There is a Battle

The five of them headed into the city through the gates.

Despite having only been to Denerim twice, Olivia found it surreal to see what had so recently been a busy city instead as a maze of burning buildings and smoke-filled streets down which roamed the occasional group of darkspawn.

As they turned the corner into the market district they found a group of dwarven warriors fighting three- Olivia checked again- yes, three- ogres.

Dashing forward, Olivia hit two of the ogres with an ice spell. The third grabbed one of the dwarves and began to pummel him. Bethany darted in and sliced at the back of one of the ogre's legs with her sword, causing it to drop the dwarf and collapse on one knee, roaring, as Zevran leapt up and stabbed it in the eye. The dwarf looked quite grateful.

Olivia and Alistair took advantage of the other two ogres' incapacitation to kill it while the third began to move again, ice cracking. Morrigan flung a spell at it and the ogre freed from the ice landed on the ground, asleep, where one of the dwarves killed it.

The group headed farther into the city, now accompanied by the dwarves. They found the first of the two darkspawn generals lurking the Chantry, along with a second trio of ogres. Morrigan paralyzed the first of the ogres and transformed into a bear, barreling forward to maul the ogre she had just incapacitated while Olivia froze the second and cast the fade shroud spell. "That looks really creepy," muttered Alistair, looking at Olivia's ghostly form as he stabbed the third ogre in the face. Olivia ignored him and cut the throat of the ogre she had frozen, a glancing blow across her armor from the darkspawn general's axe passing through her intangible body harmlessly while Zevran stabbed the distracted darkspawn in the back.

They headed onward to reach Fort Drakon. In the center of the alienage, they ran into the first sign of living civilians. Shianni stood with a group of other elves in front of the barred gates across the road leading to the Fort, all of them carrying bows and looking worried. Shianni looked extremely glad to see them. "Well you sure have good timing," she said. "There's a large group of darkspawn heading this way and the gates won't hold against it."

Olivia found it ironic that the Establishment's attempts to isolate the elves had made their neighborhood the most defensible area in the city and probably saved their lives while everyone else was overwhelmed by the darkspawn. "Help me hold them off," she said to Shianni, who nodded and shouted commands to the other elves. A thumping noise came from the direction of the gates.

The elves ran up hastily-erected scaffolding that had been set up on either side of the gates, readying their bows and beginning to fire at the ogre attempting to break down the gates and the mob of darkspawn behind it.

Alistair, Zevran, and Bethany stood with the dwarves a little ways back from the gates, weapons ready for when the gates fell, while Olivia and Morrigan each climbed up the scaffolding along with the archers to snipe at the darkspawn, simultaneously freezing and paralyzing the ogre before Olivia conjured a firestorm just beyond the gates, the flames torching the less resilient darkspawn behind the ogre.

The ogre fell before it could smash the gates, but moments after it went down they exploded in fire as the second of the two darkspawn generals appeared, flinging a fireball. Because of course it was a spellcaster. Lightning from the darkspawn's staff arced off the warriors' armor, downing the dwarves in the front row as Olivia sent flying an ice spell that it mostly shrugged off. Morrigan added a bolt of lightning to the attack and Shianni sent an arrow through its eye, felling it.

The group said goodbye to Shianni and the elves as they began to re-barricade the gates, leaving the remaining dwarves behind to bolster the alienage's defenses as they headed across the bridge over the Drakon river, leading to the half of the city containing the fort.

As soon as they had finished crossing the bridge, there was an explosion behind them as the Archdemon swooped down on the bridge, blasting it in half with its fiery breath. "Well," said Olivia. "No way back now."

The trip through the remainder of the city before the nobles' district was pretty uneventful, only running into a few groups of darkspawn stragglers, none of them particularly difficult to defeat. As they entered the district itself, however, they were treated to the sight of a small figure leaping off a tower onto the Archdemon's back as it flew past. "Is that Riordan?" asked Olivia incredulously. The figure did indeed match the silhouette of the Orlesian Warden. Maybe… The figure slipped from the Archdemon's back, falling hundreds of feet to the ground as the Archdemon flew unevenly to land on the top of the fort, one wing seemingly incapacitated.

"Damn. Riodan," muttered Alistair.

"It can't fly anymore," observed Olivia. "If we can just get to the top of the fort it won't be able to get away."

They fought their way to Fort Drakon, meeting up with a small contingent of Dalish in the courtyard just outside the gates who joined them to head up through the fortress.

There were pockets of enemies spread out throughout the building, but most of Fort Drakon was filled with the dead bodies of both its defenders and darkspawn mixed together.

On the top floor of the fort, in the final room before the flat rooftop that the Archdemon had landed on, they came across… Sandal the dwarf, surrounded by the bodies of slain darkspawn. "What." Said Olivia. "How did you even get here?"

"Enchantment!" cried Sandal happily. It may or may not have been an answer.

"No, seriously. We left you in the camp. How could you have possibly made your way through the darkspawn filled city to the top floor of the darkspawn filled fortress into a room filled with dead darkspawn? Were they alive when you got here? Did you kill them or something?"

"Enchantment!"

"I'm never going to find out, am I?" Olivia asked rhetorically.

The five heroes and the contingent of Dalish strode through the door onto the rooftop to the sight of the Archdemon finishing off the few remaining defenders of Fort Drakon. The dragon flung the final one of the men off the edge of the roof and turned to those who had just arrived, roaring, breathing out violet flames.

The Dalish spread out across the rooftop, taking out their bows, and began to shoot at the dragon, everyone spreading out, shooting arrows or spells. Olivia sent an ice spell that froze the Archdemon for- only a couple seconds. Not good. She looked around. Oh. "There are ballistae!" she yelled, heading for the nearest one and aiming it at the Archdemon. Zeveran seemed to realize what she was talking about and ran for the second ballista, firing it, driving the fired spear deep into the Archdemon's side. The dragon leapt into the air, managing to fly a few yards on its tattered wing before coming down and roaring, mouth spewing purple flame on everything in front of it. Olivia shot it with her ballista, skewering a leg. Bethany ran up. "Out of mana. Trade off." Olivia nodded and handed the spear she had been about to load into the ballista to Bethany, stepping to the side and beginning to cast a blizzard spell over the dragon.

After what felt like hours but was really probably only a few minutes of intense fighting, the Archdemon collapsed on the roof, skewered with spears and arrows, breathing heavily. Olivia's face hardened as she drew her sword, running forward and driving it through the Archdemon's skull. The wound erupted in a pillar of light shooting high into the sky. Olivia tried to remove her hands from the sword but found that she couldn't. She was thrown backward, the light exploding around her.


	19. Epilogue

Epilogue: In Which Everyone Lives Happily Ever After- For a Value of 'Ever After' Meaning 'Approximately Ten Years'

Alistair and Bethany were crowned at the big 'we survived the Blight' party held as soon as Denerim was cleared of darkspawn and no longer on fire. It was very nice. Everyone was extremely happy to be alive, completely thrilled to have a new king and queen who had gone and fought an Archdemon, and absolutely hero-worshiped Olivia, who they were now referring to as 'The Hero of Ferelden'. Also there was really good alcohol and Olivia got to wear an actual dress for the first time since she was ten.

At the ceremony Alistair offered a royal boon to Olivia, considering that she had basically saved everyone. "If it is within my power, I will grant it," he vowed.

"Is it within your power to free the mages?" Olivia asked, doubting it.

"No, I'm pretty sure attempting it would just cause the Chantry to declare an Exalted March and attack us," Alistair admitted.

"Figured as much," muttered Olivia. "All I ask is that you do right by Bethany. Though I won't be giving up on the mages."

"Of course," said Alistair. "I'm also giving Arl Howe's arling, Amaranthine, to the Grey Wardens," he added to the gathered crowd. "So," he asked, turning back to Olivia. "What do you plan to do now? Because, even though we're friends, that not giving up on the mages thing sounds a bit ominous."

She smiled. "I promise not to start any violent anti-Chantry rebellions. And I'll stick around for at least a little while. I mean, Bethany's here and, besides, you might need me."

"Oh, thank the Maker," muttered Alistair. Olivia laughed. "Anyway," he said, "there's an adoring crowd waiting outside to see you, you should probably go give them what they want."

"Right," said Olivia cheerfully. She gave him a wave and headed down toward the doors.

In the end, Olivia only remained in Denerim for about a month before heading out to Amaranthine to lead Ferelden's Grey Wardens in getting rid of all the darkspawn left over wandering around from the Blight because, after all, someone had to and Alistair was kind of busy being king. Zevran went back to Antiva to, as he put it, 'bring down those damned Crows once and for all'. He and Olivia wrote to one another and she eventually, once the darkspawn stragglers were dealt with, joined him in his quest.

Alistair and Bethany became highly popular, beloved rulers and remained stupidly in love with one another. Nobody ever noticed that Bethany was a mage. Olivia blamed preconceived notions that made people generally assume that one could not be both 'mage' and 'warrior' at the same time and anyone capable of using a sword couldn't possibly have magic and vice versa. Bethany eventually admitted that particular prejudice was the reason nobody had ever noticed her father was a mage either, back when he was working as a mercenary. Olivia had always wondered about that.

Leliana took a group of clerics on an expedition to see the Urn of Sacred Ashes, and Haven eventually became a pilgrimage site-thought the Ashes themselves vanished. Olivia blamed the Guardian for the disappearance. Leliana herself ended up as the Divine's Left Hand- and spymistress.

Wynne returned to the Circle, which was swiftly rebuilt to its previous standard of horrible thinly-veiled-prison-ness. She never outed Bethany as a mage, however, which was only fair considering that no one else ever outed her as being possessed.

Now that the Tevinter slavers were gone and they had the only completely intact neighborhood in the entire city, the lives of the elves living in Denerim improved greatly. Alistair appointed Cyrion Tabris to his court of advisors. It also helped that Shianni, who was generally considered a hero, eventually became an elder as well and constantly advocated for her people.

Arl Eamon went back to Redcliffe and helped rebuild, though he and Isolde soon retired and left Teagan in charge. Connor was sent to the Circle.

The Dalish became much more accepted in Ferelden after having helped the Grey Wardens in the final fight against the Archdemon.

In Orzammar, King Behlen led societal reform, loosening the caste-related restrictions, increasing trade with the surface, and winning back several thaigs that had previously been lost to the darkspawn. For some reason people didn't seem to like this much- probably because the higher castes saw it as a threat to their own positions- and there were so many assassination attempts that Behlen eventually dissolved the assembly and ruled without them, causing even more controversy. Basically, everyone either loved him or hated him.

A few mad scientists found the broken pieces of the Anvil of the Void- which in retrospect Olivia really should have pushed into the magma after Carridin- and attempted to recreate Carridin's research, resulting in them all being killed by the golem they had created using a Fade spirit. Luckily, saner heads prevailed and the research was locked up, but there were still factions who constantly annoyed the Shaperate with demands that they try again.

Morrigan vanished completely after the battle, not even staying long enough for the party. A pregnant woman matching her description was seen traveling west through the Frostback Mountains months later. After that, though, nothing was seen or heard of her until everything had once more gone to hell in a handbasket.


End file.
